Quest Magazine

Legends of the Grail: The Chivalric Vision

Originally printed in the November - December 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Ralls, Karen. "Legends of the Grail: The Chivalric Vision." Quest  91.6 (NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2003):210-215.

By Karen Ralls

Theosophical Society - Karen Ralls, Ph. D., FSA Scot., is an Oxford based medieval historian and Celtic scholar. She was Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Deputy Curator of the Rosslyn Chapel museum exhibition. She lectures worldwide and is author of The Quest for the Celtic Key, Music and the Celtic Otherworld and Indigenous Religious Music. This excerpt is from her latest book The Templars and the Grail (Quest Books, 2003).The Grail and the quest for it have gripped the Western imagination possibly more than any other legendary tradition. It "is the embodiment of a dream, an idea of such universal application that it appears in a hundred different places . . . Yet, although its history, both inner and outer, can for the most part be traced, it remains elusive, a spark of light glimpsed at the end of a tunnel, or a reflection half-seen in a swiftly-passed mirror" (Williams, Elements 1). Though usually thought of as a medieval theme, it is very much alive today like the memory of the Knights Templar, which also continues to hold our fascination. Both the Grail legends and the Templar mythos have resonated through the centuries. And despite the lack of concrete historical evidence, people have tried to link the two in various ways even believing that the Templars had the Grail.

Like the Ark of the Covenant, the Grail is presented as profoundly mysterious. It can be dangerous, even deadly, to certain people with good reason, tradition says. Some people see the Grail, but others don't. To those who do, it often appears surrounded by brilliant light, sometimes carried by a beautiful maiden, in other accounts moving by itself in midair. In the end, it may be not an object at all but a spiritual treasure—the truth and love of God.

The era of the Grail Romances

Despite the enormous antiquity of the Grail material, it did not appear in literary form by and large until the Grail romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Given the complexities of medieval dating, scholars cannot always determine the precise date for a manuscript; they can say, however, that many Grail romances were written between 1190 and 1240—within the Templar Order's era. Many were authored by monks, in particular, Cistercians and Benedictines. These two Orders, though associated in some ways, were distinct from each other as well as from the Templar Order. There is no historical evidence that a Templar wrote a Grail romance, although some romances have Templar-related themes and details.

The years 1190-1240 fall during the High Middle Ages, one of the great experimental and creative epochs in European history. This period saw not only the writing of the Grail romances and the rise and fall of the Templar Order but also—among other things—construction of the High Gothic cathedrals, the peak of the cult of chivalry, a tremendous upsurge in pilgrimage, the great popularity of the Black Madonna shrines, the troubadours and the Courts of Love, and the rise of certain Hermetic and alchemical themes after a period of dormancy in the West. This cluster of cultural phenomena, expressing the spirit of the times, was contemporaneous with such political and social developments as the Crusades, the signing of the Magna Carta, the time of the Cathars, and the growth of the famed universities of Paris, Oxford, and Bologna—and the lives of such figures as Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, and St. Francis. Historians note that the quest for knowledge and the arts during this time was nothing short of phenomenal. It was an era of extraordinary flowering.

The notion of a single Grail story is a common present-day misconception. There is no such thing.The Grail romances are many and varied and often do not agree with each other. One could say there is a general, prototypical Grail story, but even that must be an amalgamation of themes, people, and places from different manuscripts. Another popular misconception is that the Knights Templar are the same as the Arthurian knights of the Round Table. This is not the case.

Remarkably, however, the first Grail romance, like many of the first Templar knights, came from the area around Troyes, Champagne.

With both subjects—the Templars and the Grail legends—Troyes seems to figure prominently.

Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron

One of the earliest known instances of the Grail motif in writing is Le Conte du Graal,written by Chrétien de Troyes in 1190, just a few decades after the Templar Order's founding.Chrétien's main character, Perceval, is a guileless knight, the archetypal Fool, whose primary trait is innocence. He sees the Grail during a feast at "a mysterious castle presided over by a lame man called the Fisher King . . . Chrétien calls the object simply 'un graal,' and its appearance is just one of the unusual events which take place during the feast . . . at this time, Perceval is also shown a broken sword which must be mended. The two objects together, sword and grail, are symbols of Perceval's development as a true knight" (Wood, The Holy Grail 171).

Unfortunately, Chrétien died before he could finish his story, so other writers attempted to complete it. These versions, called the Continuations, embellish the tale and bring in other Grail themes, such as the Grail floating on a platter in midair, the bleeding lance, the broken sword, and the curious theme of the Chapel of the Black Hand, where a mysterious hand continuously snuffs out the candles. As more Continuations were written, other details—such as the magic chess board, the spear, the cup, and the Precious Blood—were added, and Perceval has even more challenging adventures. In one Continuation, a lady at the Chapel of the Black Hand offers Perceval a white stag's head and a dog, which he loses and must find again before he can return to the Grail castle. Once a certain broken sword is mended, Perceval "as grail ruler heals the land. After seven years he retires to a hermitage, and when he dies, the grail, lance and dish go with him"(Wood 171).

Burgundian poet Robert de Boron wrote two Grail romances, Joseph d'Arimathie and Merlin—his most famous works—sometime between 1191 and 1200. Walter of Montbeliard, his patron—who, like Chrétien's patron, was a crusader—commissioned de Boron to write both. De Boron gives a definitively Christian tenor to his Grail story, presenting the knights' quest as a spiritual search rather than the usual courtly adventure undertaken for a lady's love or the king's honor. In Joseph d'Arimathie, which scholars now believe may have been written in Cyprus, Pilate gives the cup used at both the Last Supper and the Crucifixion to Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph is later put in prison, where he has a vision:

Christ brings the grail to Joseph in prison where it sustains him and teaches him its secrets.Joseph is freed by the emperor Vespasian who has been cured by Veronica's veil (another mysterious relic associated with Christ's passion) . . . Joseph establishes a second table of the grail, and Bron catches a fish which is placed on the table and separates the just from the unjust. The object is called the Holy Grail

Alain, the leader of Bron's twelve sons, goes to Britain to await the "third man" (Perceval?) who will be the permanent keeper of the grail (Wood 172).

Bron then becomes the Fisher King, and Joseph returns to Arimathea. Bron himself eventually goes to Britain, taking the Grail with him.

Early thirteenth-century prose versions of Robert de Boron's works link the Grail story more closely with Arthurian legend. Diu Krone, by Heinrich von dem Turlim, presents Sir Gawain as the hero, while the Cistercian Queste del Saint Graal features Galahad. In the latter, the quest for the Grail becomes a search for mystical union with God. Only Galahad can look directly into the Grail and behold the divine mysteries. The Queste presents Galahad as the son of Lancelot, thus contrasting chivalry inspired by divine love, as with Galahad, against that inspired by human love, as between Lancelot and Guinevere. This is the best-known version of the Grail story in the English-speaking world. It was the basis for Sir Thomas Malory's famous late-fifteenth-century prose work Le Morte d'Arthur—in turn, the story-line source for much of the film Excalibur and the musical Camelot.

The Many Forms of the Grail

Various Grail romances present the Grail as different objects: a cup or chalice, a relic of the Precious Blood of Christ, a cauldron of plenty, a silver platter, a stone from Heaven, a dish, a sword, a spear, a fish, a dove with a communion Host in its beak, a bleeding white lance, a secret Book or Gospel, manna from Heaven, a blinding light, a severed head, a table, and more. Indeed, a truth about the Grail is that it takes different forms. In Chrétien's Le Conte du Graal, the Grail is a platter bearing a single Eucharist wafer. Robert de Boron's account introduces the Grail as the chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper. In the Queste del Saint Graal it is the dish from which Jesus ate the Passover lamb, which now holds the Eucharist wafers. Wolfram von Eschenbach presents it as a luminous pure stone. The anonymously written Perlesvaus describes it as five different things. There is no single Grail story, and no single Grail—this point cannot be emphasized enough.

The Grail can manifest differently to each seeker. It can be an earthly object, which may or may not be endowed with sacrality; it may be the goal of a spiritual search. Ultimately, it remains a mystery."So the pointers to the Grail may only suggest a path to a beatific vision of its manifestations. Each finder discovers a unique insight into the divine . . . Through the control of the body and the refining of the spirit, an understanding of self might be followed by a revelation of the divine. To attain the ever-changing Grail is to search deep within and so reach out to a personal path to God" (Sinclair, Discovery of the Grail 124).

The Grail as a Stone

Wolfram clearly identifies the Grail in his account as a stone: "A stone of the purest kind . . . called lapsit exillas . . . There never was human so ill that if he one day sees the stone, he cannot die within the week that follows . . . and though he should see the stone for two hundred years [his appearance] will never change, save that perhaps his hair might turn grey" (Matthews, Elements 52-3). The term lapsit exillas can be translated as either "stone from Heaven" or "stone from exile"—which some scholars believe could mean a meteorite. Later in the story Wolfram says the Grail stone is an emerald that fell from Lucifer's crown during the war in Heaven; angels who took neither side in that war brought it to earth, where it remains.

The hermit Trevrizent tells Parzival that the Grail guardians, the Templeisen, living at the Grail castle exist by virtue of this stone alone. Some analysts believe this relates to the idea of manna, the special food from Heaven that sustained the ancient Israelites as they wandered in the desert. So also, the Grail knights receive their only nourishment from a divine source. They exist on its luminosity and holiness, and it sustains them physically, rewarding them, as Wolfram points out, with perpetual youth. It can also heal the sick.

When Parzival arrives at Trevrizent's hermitage, he seems unfamiliar with Christian customs.Trevrizent shows him the chapel and stresses that it happens to be Good Friday, so the altar has been stripped bare and no consecrated Host is left there. (The centuries-old custom in the Catholic Church was to "banish the Host" on Good Friday. Since the Vatican II Council, the Host is no longer banished but is removed to a darkened "altar of repose" until Easter morning.) Trevrizent says that on Good Friday at the Grail castle, a dove descends from Heaven and deposits a wafer on the lapsit exillas. This empowers the stone to provide continual nourishment for the Templeisen.

Various writers through the centuries have suggested that the Grail as a stone refers to the famed philosopher's stone, lapis elixir, mentioned in alchemical writings. French Celtic scholarJean Markale comments:

There is first of all an alchemical allusion, lapis exillis being quite close tolapis elixir, which is the term used by the Arabs to designate the Philosopher's Stone. Next the stone of the Grail guarded by angels irresistibly summons thoughts of the Ka'aba stone in Mecca . . . One is reminded in particular of the tradition that states that the Grail was carved into the form of a vessel from the gigantic emerald that fell from Lucifer's forehead . . . In addition, Wolfram's Grail/Stone bears a great resemblance to the Manichaean jewel, the Buddhist padma mani, the jewel found in the heart of the lotus that is the solar symbol of the Great Liberation and which can also be found in the Indian traditions concerning the Tree of Life (Markale, Grail 133-4).

Wolfram's stone could also derive from the legendary lapis exilii, the Stone of Death. Wolfram tells us that a phoenix sits on the luminous stone and is burned to ashes and reborn there—an echo of the alchemical theme of death and rebirth.

Templar-Related Elements in the Grail Romances

What kinds of connections exist among the Templars, the Grail, and the Grail romances? The historical record provides no evidence that a Templar wrote a Grail romance—or that the Templar Order ever possessed the Grail, though people through the centuries have been certain they did have it. We do know, however, that some of the romance authors' patrons were crusaders, though not necessarily Templars, and that these writers certainly knew of the Templars'achievements in the Holy Land. And a number of Templar-related themes and details appear in some Grail romances, ranging from symbolism to the portrayal of the perfect knight to important concepts of chivalry and chivalric behavior.

The Grail and Templar themes mingle the most closely in Wolfram's Parzival. Wolfram is the only Grail romance writer to intimate that his Grail guardians were Templar knights. The medieval German word for "Templars" was Tempelherren, but scholars generally acknowledge Wolfram intended his Templeisen to be viewed as Templars. Parzival's unique focus on the Templars may be partly because both Wolfram and his patron, Hermann I of Thuringia, were drawn to the East. In an earlier work, Willeham, Wolfram shows sympathetic interest in Muslim culture. Hermann I, a promoter of the knightly ideal, himself took up the cross and went on the German crusade of 1197-98. He was also fascinated by astrology, which was gaining popularity in twelfth-century European courts following the influx from Spain of Arabic texts in Latin translation (Nicholson, Love, War, and the Grail 108). Scholars believe Wolfram's Mount of Salvation—on which the Grail castle sits and where the Templeisen live—is a veiled allusion to Mount Sion in Jerusalem, since the original nine Templars lived on the Temple Mount. However, unlike the Templars, his Templeisen's shields bear a turtle dove—a symbol of peace, not holy war.

Wolfram portrays Parzival as related to the Arthurian line through his father and to the Grail family through his mother. Wolfram's Grail family is not the courtly society of Arthurian legend but a divinely chosen vehicle in world affairs, comprising the Templeisen and others whom the Grail silently selects to carry on its tradition. Women are included in the Grail family. Although Wolfram mentions a Grail succession, he also says the Grail lineage derived from it is a secret only the angels know. Certain people are assigned, by God through the Grail, to guard the Grail for posterity, thereby reuniting humanity with God, that is, "restoring the wasteland."

The early-thirteenth-century Old French Arthurian romance Perlesvaus, known also as The High Book of the Grail, was authored by a cleric with Benedictine connections (Bryant). In this tale, the Grail castle sits in both the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem—an idea with obvious Templar connotations. Perlesvaus (Perceval), is a knight of Christ, though not explicitly a Templar. He travels overseas to an island where he visits the Castle of the Four Horns. Here he encounters thirty-three men in white robes with red crosses on their chests, like the medieval Templars' dress. His own shield displays a red cross with a gold border around it, similar but not identical to the historical Templars' shield. Perlesvaus stresses throughout the idea of holy war against the infidel—clearly mirroring the Crusades, in which the Templars played a starring role. It relates Arthur and his knights' efforts to impose by force the New Law of Christianity in place of the Old Law. Atypically for a Grail romance, Arthur's knights are portrayed collectively as a kingdom, not as individuals on their own quests. This resembles the Templar Order's underlying ethos, where the group's intention is more important than an individual's personal quest.

The Queste del Saint Graal, written by a Cistercian monk in 1215 for another crusader patron, Jeande Nesle, makes numerous allusions to the Templars. The star of this romance is Galahad—here a descendant of King Solomon—who is devout, chaste, and destined from birth to achieve the Grail.Galahad isn't called a Templar; he is a secular knight. However, at a monastery of white brothers he receives a white shield with a red cross on it that once belonged to Joseph of Arimathea—perhaps because he is portrayed as a direct descendant of Joseph through his mother. The medieval Cistercians were called the White Monks, and the Templars' white mantle was marked with a red cross.

While in Perlesvaus the Grail castle is Jerusalem, in the Queste the Grail knights go to Jerusalem with the Grail, but only after they complete their quest. When Galahad, Perceval, and Bors reach the Grail castle, they encounter nine more knights who have achieved the Grail. One has to wonder if this is a veiled reference to the original nine Templars. All twelve knights then celebrate communion, and Christ himself is the priest—a reenactment of the Last Supper. Galahad, after eating the consecrated host administered by Christ, has a vision of himself as Christ crucified and dies in ecstasy before the altar. Grail scholar R. S. Loomis comments: "In this celestial liturgy Christ is the officiant as well as the victim . . . Presumably it is [the] well-established belief in the presence of angelic visitants at the celebration of the Eucharist and in the assumption of the priestly office by Christ Himself which has led to the introduction of these two features . . . [in the Queste's] reenactment of the Last Supper" (Loomis, The Grail 193-4).

The great Cistercian abbot St. Bernard in mystical states sometimes experienced himself as Christ crucified. In his famous Sermons on the Song of Songs he discusses extraordinary mystical experiences, some involving the mysteries of the consecrated Host, or Eucharist "bread." He refers to "Solomon's bread," an Israelite forerunner of the Christian Eucharist that often induced mystical experiences." Seeing oneself as Christ crucified, especially after ingesting the consecrated Host, was central to the Syriac Mystery of the Cross. Theologian Dan Merkur writes:

It is significant that Bernard began the very first of his Sermons with series of allusions to the Eucharist. Among them was a discussion of Solomon's bread . . . Bernard was privy to the mystery of manna. He knew of a bread that had had use as a mystical sacrament in the temple of Solomon. How did Bernard come by his knowledge of manna? A passage in the fifty-second Sermon tends to indicate that Bernard was familiar with internal controversies in the Syriac mystical tradition. By the late seventh century Syrian mystics had developed alternative techniques for the performance of the Mystery of the Cross (Merkur, The Mystery of Manna 106).

That Bernard knew of mystical experiences concerning the consecrated Host with roots going back to the time of Solomon's temple is amazing enough. Note too that the Queste's author was also a Cistercian; the Templars and Cistercians were closely connected, especially in France; and Bernard was active in both Orders. Clearly these links formed a web of associations. We know some Templars spent time in Syria; they may have learned about the Syriac Mystery of the Cross from fellow Christians there.

The figure of Galahad in the Queste underscores the secular ideal of Christian knighthood and chivalrous behavior. It is the nonmonastic Galahad—not a Templar—who is the successful Grail knight. He embodies the perfect Christian knight, perhaps even as the Templars conceived this. Yet he dies not in glory on a battlefield but in the Grail castle. Perhaps the Queste's Cistercian author is saying one can reach Christian chivalrous impeccability without joining a military religious Order. Or perhaps he is suggesting that a knight must seek salvation on his own, not as part of an enclosed community. Rather than fighting the enemies of Christ on the battlefield, the task is to slay one's own demons within and perfect one's character.

Bernard's teachings describe a person's progress toward spiritual perfection as a series of states of grace. The Queste, heavily influenced by Bernard's views, presents Galahad's quest for the Grail in similar terms. He is portrayed, as the Templars are portrayed, as striving for knightly perfection in word and deed. However, the mystery of the Grail is in fact found at another level of experience, as an ineffable inner knowing. Nearly all the romances agree on this. It is this aspect of the Grail that beckons many to their own spiritual journeys today.

Karen Ralls, Ph. D., FSA Scot., is an Oxford based medieval historian and Celtic scholar. She was Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Deputy Curator of the Rosslyn Chapel museum exhibition. She lectures worldwide and is author of The Quest for the Celtic Key, Music and the Celtic Otherworld and Indigenous Religious Music. This excerpt is from her latest book The Templars and the Grail (Quest Books, 2003).



References

  • Loomis, R.S. The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, 1991.
  • Markale, J. The Grail. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1999.
  • Matthews, J. Elements of the Grail Tradition. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 1990.
  • Merkur, D. The Mystery of the Manna. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2000.
  • Nicholson, H. 2001. Love, War, and the Grail: Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights in Medieval Epic and Romance 1150-1500. History of Warfare Series, vol. 4.
  • Sinclair, A. The Discovery of the Grail. London, England: Random House, 1998.
  • Wood, J. October 2000. The Holy Grail: From Romance Motif to Modern Genre. Folklore 3:171.

The Lord of the Rings and the Journey to the Heart of the Universe

Originally printed in the November - December  2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Vachet, Helene. "The Lord of the Rings and the Journey to the Heart of the Universe." Quest  90.5 (NOVEMBER - DECEMBER  2002):204-213.

By Helene Vachet

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
      Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
      One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadow's lie.
      One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
      One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

—J. R. R. Tolkien

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

—H. P. Blavatsky



EVERYONE HAS ACCESS to at least two worlds—the one in which we live and the one in which we dream and imagine. In fantasy literature, we can directly enter the world of dreams and find a place so real that we can learn and grow from our experience in it. Experiencing a great story can transport us directly into the inner recesses of the universe within ourselves, which we all share, and can open the door to the mysteries of that inner world. This transformational process can be seen especially in a reader's encounter with The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Written mainly between 1937 and 1949 (which places most of the writing during World War II), The Lord of the Rings did not become a best seller until the 1960s. Despite that late start, it can arguably be called the greatest work of fiction of the twentieth century. Its main themes—good versus evil, friendship, the importance of the individual, and reverence for nature—are as relevant today, during the current campaign against terrorism, as when the book was written. Every chapter has passages that students can interpret in various ways according to their religious and philosophical beliefs. Mary McNamara, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, said, "50 million copies of the trilogy and 40 million copies of its precursor, The Hobbit—have been sold in 35 languages, which puts the Tolkien oeuvre somewhere between the Bible, 'Mao's little Red Book' and that boy wizard [Harry Potter]." New Line Cinema has spent $300 million, hoping that their efforts to translate the story to the screen will produce the films of the century.

The Lord of the Rings is the story of "the fellowship of the ring," consisting of the wizard Gandalf the Gray, two men (Aragorn and Boromir) the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli, and four Hobbits (small people with great hearts Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo the "Ring Bearer"). The book follows the adventures of the fellowship as they set out to destroy the One Ring, the ultimate symbol of evil. If they do not succeed and the war to gain control of it is won by the Dark Lord, Sauron, life as it was known will end and the free people of Middle-earth will be enslaved.

To save Middle-earth, the One Ring—the Ruling Ring—fashioned ages ago by the Dark Lord,Sauron, must be destroyed by throwing it back into the Cracks of Doom, where it was originally forged. No one, not even a great wizard or warrior can wear the One Ring without being corrupted by its seductive powers. Frodo reluctantly volunteers to carry the ring to its destruction. Elrond, the immortal, bearer of the greatest of the Elven rings—Vilya, the Blue Ring—agrees that this quest is Frodo's destiny: "I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will."

The great War of the Ring cannot be detailed here, but the encounters of some of the leading characters with the One Ring as they journey to the Cracks of Doom can be briefly treated. Because we, ourselves, have not yet destroyed the products of the One Ring—our desire for power, our greed, selfishness, pride, and lust—we can learn from the reactions of these characters as they encounter the Ring. The characters fall into two categories, like those in Blavatsky's passage above—"those who win onwards" and "those who fail," and there is also a shadow.

The Shadow

The shadow is a psychological manifestation of the occult and scientific concept of polarity. Ed Abdill, a Theosophical writer and speaker, says that all polarities derive from the initial polarization of the One, which results in the breaking of the primordial unity of all things to form the universe. From this act, come such polar opposites as space and substance, inner life and outer form, positive and negative, and good and evil. Without polarity, there would be no universe, no struggle, no contrast, no limitation, no growth, and no shadow.

One of Carl Jung's great insights, one that particularly resonates with The Lord of the Rings, was that the ego (our conscious sense of ourselves) and the shadow (the unconscious or repressed aspects of our personality) come from the same psychological source and that they exactly balance each other. To make light is to make shadow. One cannot exist without the other. This concept is critically important in understanding one's danger in joining a spiritual organization, in doing good deeds, and in following a spiritual path. The shadow also explains why so many converts are disillusioned when they join a spiritual organization. They want to make spiritual progress, and they ignore their shadows at their peril. In The Lord of the Rings, the truly wise are attentive to their shadows.

Maria Louise von Franz, the Jungian writer, identified the shadow with the entire unconscious,everything that is not known consciously. If we fail to acknowledge our shadows and pretend that we are more advanced than we are or if we fail to realize that we have unfinished karma waiting to surface and neglect to integrate our shadow, it will regress as time progresses. If the shadow becomes too powerful, it can take over the conscious personality. The Ruling Ring is utterly evil and acts as a triggering mechanism to unleash the shadow when anyone possesses it or desires it. That is the price one pays to access the Ring's power. To its wearer, the One Ring gives mastery over other living creatures, in proportion to the evolutionary stature of its owner.

Those Who Win Onwards

Frodo

The Hobbit Frodo has inherited his dwelling, his riches, and a magic ring from Bilbo Baggins, his uncle, who many years previously had gone on an adventure with the wizard Gandalf and twelve dwarves to regain the treasure taken by the dragon Smaug. During his adventure, Bilbo encountered a Hobbit like creature called Gollum, who had lost a magic ring that Bilbo had just found. The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the trilogy, begins with Bilbo's one-hundred and eleventh birthday party and the passing of that ring to Frodo.

The experience of the ring, which Frodo learns is in fact the One Ring, provides a catalyst that expands Frodo's consciousness so that he is able to transcend his own experience. Its power enables him to understand others, and the importance of his mission gives him the courage to proceed on his journey to destroy the Ring. However, the power of the Ring keeps Frodo so ensnared that he cannot relinquish it without assistance.

In Lothlórien, the idyllic land of the Elves, Frodo meets the Lady Galadriel, and, with his heightened awareness, he is able to perceive her Elven ring. Galadriel says:

It cannot be hidden from the ring-bearer, and one who has seen the eye. Verily it is in the land of Lórien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, I am its keeper. He [the Dark Lord] suspects, but he does not know—not yet. Do you not see wherefore your coming is to us as the footsteps of doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.

Although Frodo is not able to release the ring without help, his martyrdom in carrying it, and the increased understanding he displays particularly at the end when dealing with the corrupted Saruman and Wormtongue, earn his passage to the Undying Lands across the great sea. One can compare Frodo's hesitancy and timorous questions at the beginning of the quest, when he finds out that Sauron may be seeking the ring, to his growth at the end of the trilogy. At first he is distraught:

"But this is terrible!" cried Frodo "far worse than the worst that I imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature [Gollum], when he had a chance!"

Near the end of the last book, Frodo responds to Saruman's failed attempt to kill him in a different way:

"No, Sam!" said Frodo. "Do not kill him even now. For he has not hurt me. And in any case, I do not wish him to be slain in this evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us: but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it."

Frodo, in his journey to the Cracks of Doom, that is, into matter, has passed beyond what life in his comfortable world of the Shire can teach him. He is ready for the next step in the evolutionary journey, like the Fool of the Tarot cards. The Fool carries a pouch, which can symbolize a bag of memories, the essence of all his past experience, carried forward from one incarnation to another. We must use spiritual sight as a means of unlocking the secrets of that pouch, not the ring of power made by Sauron; instead, we must look within to find the path to the heart of the universe.

Gandalf

The apotheosis of the Wizard Gandalf begins in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the trilogy, and is a continuing theme. Near the beginning of the story, Frodo guilelessly offers the Ring to Gandalf, saying that bearing it is too great a task for him, but Gandalf refuses the Ring:

With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and—more deadly. . . . Do not tempt me. I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength.

Gandalf's insight reveals that he understands the nature and peril of the shadow. From his refusal to take the Ring, Gandalf gains the increased strength of will to resist and help break the power of Saruman, the Balrog, the Orcs, the Ringwraiths, and other evil beings in Middle-earth and to complete his task of heading the forces of good against Sauron, the Dark Lord. In the process, he transforms himself from Gandalf the Gray to Gandalf the White; and, in the end, earns the right to depart by sea to the Undying Lands. So the power to do good stems from our strength, which is the result of winning the battle against temptation—:in other words, facing and integrating our shadow.

Gandalf can be compared to the Tarot card of the Hermit. Its number is nine, which stands for completion or attainment, meaning that control has been established over the beast in us, our animal nature, symbolized in The Lord of the Rings by the Balrog. The Hermit carries a lantern, the light in which appears as two interlaced triangles, symbolizing human consciousness in contrast with Saruman's degeneration at Orthanc.

Galadriel

In the course of the great adventure, Frodo and the company of the Ring pass into Lothlórien, where Frodo offers the One Ring to the Elven Queen, Galadriel, after she shows him his future in her magic mirror. This episode is similar to Frodo's offer of the one Ring to Gandalf:

"You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel. . . . I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me."

". . . And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night. Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! . . . I pass the test. . . . I will diminish and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

In Tolkien's Unfinished Tales, Galadriel is described (before her arrival in Middle-earth) as having dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage, but what saves her from being seduced by the Ring is her noble and generous spirit and her reverence for the Valar, the godlike beings of the Undying Lands. Also she has a marvelous gift of understanding and insight into the minds of others, and, unlike the Dark Lord, she uses her power with mercy and wisdom. Tolkien says that in reward for her service against Sauron and, above all, for her rejection of the temptation to take the ring when offered to her, her prayer is granted, and she is allowed to take a ship to the Undying Lands, a place suggestive of the after-death kingdom of Devachan. It almost seems that Frodo was meant to offer the one Ring to both Gandalf and Galadriel to give them the opportunity to face and integrate their shadows.

There is a connection between Galadriel and the Star card of the Tarot. The goddess depictedon it is pouring substance from a pitcher into a pool, reminiscent of the Mirror of Galadriel.Thus naked star woman, earth mother goddess, and Aquarian water-bearer is the same eternal Isis whose identity is kept secret from us by invisible veils of maya. However, she reveals herself voluntarily through greater insight into her workings to those who have proven their worthiness, like Frodo. This is evocative of what Joy Mills, a noted Theosophist, has said about Yoga. The practitioners of Yoga remove the veils that bar the profane from knowing, but the veils are there to force us to go through the process in order to raise our consciousness to the point of knowing.

Those Who Fail

Sauron

Sauron was one of the Maiar, an angelic being, comparable to Lucifer, the fallen Angel of depicted on-Christian tradition. Sauron, like Melkor, his teacher—an earlier personification of evil, did not sing to the same tune as Iluvator, the divine Creator of The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien's epic mythology of Middle-earth. Sauron's desire for individuality and power engulfed him in many schemes to gain the secrets of the Elves and to control others. His selfish desires closed his inner ear and kept him from hearing the beauty in Iluvator's song, which expresses the harmony of the world and the brotherhood of all beings.

In early times, Sauron's beauty of face and form masked his corruption, just as the wisdom of Gandalf and the beauty and intuition of Galadriel masked the potential for evil in their shadows. What saved them was their ability to look inward. Sauron deceives not only others but also himself. Eventually, his treachery and evil deeds completely corrupt his vision, and he is unable to retain and manifest the beauty of form that was characteristic of his kind, so he degenerates into a hideous creature with a yellow lidless eye. He becomes so obviously evil that he can no longer deceive anyone by his appearance. We can learn from Sauron's downfall to look within for a true inner vision of the universe and not be deceived by outward appearances, however compelling they may seem. His lidless eye is always looking for the Ruling Ring, outwardly, away from Mordor, because it was inconceivable to him that anyone would take the ring, unused, to the Cracks of Doom in Mordor in order to destroy it.

We also learn from Sauron that Tolkien's view of evil is cyclical, as is the Theosophical view of all life. H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine (2:189) writes, "those glorious thinkers, the Occultists, trace cycle merging into cycle, containing and contained in an endless series." Gandalf says to Frodo, "always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again." Sauron is a shape that rose again from being the vanquished Necromancer of Mirkwood to becoming Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor.

There is a link between Sauron and the Tarot. Each card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck is related to a Hebrew letter. The name of the Hebrew letter ayin, which is associated with the card of the Devil, means "eye" and signifies "outward appearance." Sauron is depicted as a lidless yellow eye, ever moving and searching. The Devil has been called the "father of lies." In Jewels of the Wise (Holy Order of Mans, 1974), the unknown author writes, "The Devil, called 'father of lies,' is holding up his palm to full view, trying to tell you that what you see before you is all there is . . . in contrast to the Hierophant, who told you that there is always more than is seen or can be revealed." The Hierophant's message relates to intuition and inner hearing, keynotes of Gandalf and Galadriel.

Saruman

Saruman is head of a secret order, Wielders of the Flame of Anor. He is one of the Istari, the Order of Wizards, to which Gandalf also belongs. In the Unfinished Tales, Tolkien says the Istari have the ability to incarnate at will. Wizards were sent to Middle-earth by the Valor. They were not to rule others or overpower them with majesty of form, but rather, in the guise of humble, aged men, to advise and persuade humans and elves to be good and to unite in love and understanding. This sounds like the Great Brotherhood of Masters in esoteric tradition.

Saruman, also known in The Unfinished Tales as the White Messenger, who was skilled to uncover all secrets, fell from his high mission and became proud, impatient, and enamored of power. In fact, he became a rival to Sauron, the Dark Lord, and sought to overthrow him by gaining the One Ring, but instead was ensnared by that mightier dark spirit. In The Masters and the Path, C. W. Leadbeater says about the Path, "There is the possibility of falling back. . . . if there is the least tinge of pride in the man's nature, he is in serious risk of a fall."

There is a correlation between the Tarot card of the Tower and Saruman with his fortress of Orthanc. The tower can signify an attempt to build a link from earth to heaven instead of from heaven to earth. In other words, to build an earthly structure to a far-off God, instead of preparing the temple of our own vehicles, fit to hold the indwelling God already there. Another interpretation that fits this situation is the imprisonment of ourselves within the narrow strictures of our self-imposed beliefs instead of realizing that the bricks of our tower are composed of the clay of Adam and therefore vulnerable.

In Jewels of the Wise, the author also compares the Tower card to the athanor, the alchemical vessel in which the alchemist transmutes base metals into gold. The athanor is "a furnace used by the alchemists, in which a constant heat was maintained by means of a tower which provided a self-feeding supply of charcoal" (Oxford English Dictionary). In other words, in the athanor our base human natures are transformed into spiritual natures, unlike at Orthanc, where spiritual aspirations have given way to pride and baseness is encouraged. It is curious that athanor and Orthanc share the middle letters -than-.

The Hebrew letter peh, meaning "mouth," associated with the Tower card, is drawn like the letter kaph "closed hand," except that a small tongue has been added. It is as though peh gives utterance to that which was comprehended by kaph. Saruman had the power to enchant and ensnare others by his voice, and as he became corrupted, so was his message. It is fitting that his servant and messenger is called "Wormtongue."

Saruman, like Sauron, degenerated in proportion to his greatness. He was the head of the White Council, but his true metal soon became apparent to the bearers of the Elven rings. Cirdan, the shipwright at the Gray Havens, gave Gandalf, not Saruman, Nenya, the Red Ring; and Galadriel says that if her advice had been followed, Gandalf, not Saruman, would have been made head of the White Council. Therefore, to the discerning or intuitive, the seeds of evil or self-destruction can be perceived early. Saruman's downfall, like that of Sauron, the Dark Lord of similar name, was brought about through pride, contrasting with Gandalf's humility. His desire to be important caused him to settle at the fortress of Orthanc and to specialize in the study of the lore of the Ring.

Saruman's link to Sauron stems from his study of subjects similar to those of Sauron, and the final connection between them was a palantir, a seeing stone, by which the ancient race achieved telepathic communication. This linking of his mind with that of Sauron, who had the master palantir, completed the task of corruption. Éliphas Lévi wrote that the Astral Light (which H. P. Blavatsky said is used for telepathic communication) can be "a tempting Demon . . . and the inspirer of all our worst deeds." Saruman degenerated into Sharkey, a fallen wizard, who amused himself by causing as much destruction as possible in Hobbiton and by ordering his underling, Wormtongue, to resort to cannibalism.

According to Robert Johnson, a Jungian scholar, the shadow, when left alone, regresses to a primitive state. This regression would also apply to the collective shadow and explains hate crimes, serial murders, periodic wars, and terrorism. It also explains why certain larger than life figures, both in reality and fiction, emerge as princes of light and darkness who can grow into great heroes or degenerate into great or petty criminals. The regression of the shadow explains the degeneration of Saruman, Sauron, and Gollum.

Gollum

Gollum is enigmatic. In many ways, he is the most complex character in the whole work. He is a creature of conflicting desires of good and evil. Unlike Bilbo, Frodo's uncle, the Ring finder, who assumed ownership of the One Ring with pity and compassion, Gollum assumed his ownership by killing his friend Deagol and claimed it as his birthday present. The Ring immediately gained ascendancy over him. Yet, in spite of his evil deeds, Gollum saved Middle-earth. If he had not pursued Frodo, the quest would have failed. Why was Gollum like an agent of karma who was born and lived in a period that positioned him to assume this role? It seems that evil is a necessary part of the eternal equation. Would someone totally corrupted have been placed by the universe in such a position?

Gollum's role is foreshadowed from the beginning when Bilbo had difficulty parting with the Ringand later when Frodo's reluctance to show it to anyone who wanted to see it went further than mere caution to protect it. Gollum guided Frodo and Sam to Mordor on the treacherous path through Cirith Ungol, which was the only way that Frodo could enter Mordor undetected by Sauron. The selection of this path was dictated by Gollum's desire for Shelob, the great spider, to kill Frodo, from whose discarded body Gollum hoped to retrieve the Ring. But that evil desire does not negate the good that was achieved by Gollum's intervention at Mount Doom. There he bit off Frodo's finger to gain the ring, but he destroyed it as he fell with it to his death in the Cracks of Doom. Although Gollum failed in terms of personal redemption, surely his deed, however unplanned by him, generated enough good karma to insure a new existence in the eternal life cycle under better circumstances. Only the wise know.

There is a relationship between Gollum and the Tarot card of Death. Death can be considered a change or transformation from one state to another. Michael Stanton, professor of English literature at the University of Vermont, calls Gollum a classic case of split or dual personality, a doppelgänger. The split is between that aspect of the poor creature whose original name was Smeagol and who speaks of himself as "I" and the aspect of what he has become, called Gollum, who speaks of himself as "we." The "we" side of his personality is ensnared by the Ring; the "I" side is the reflection of an originally free being.

The transformation that Gollum brings about in Middle-earth is much greater than his personal psychological change. His act of biting off Frodo's finger brings an end to the reign of Sauron and the beginning of the new age of human beings. The symbol associated with the card of Death is the Hebrew letter Nun, meaning a "fish," coincidentally Gollum's main dietary staple. When Gollum finally leaves the caves where he was hiding from the sun, he finds his way into the forest of Mirkwood where he catches unwary prey and sucks their blood like a vampire—one of the undead.

Conclusion

In facing one's own shadow, one reaches a holy place. That is the reward. The once hidden nextstep in the journey is now possible. In The Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuin, the boy wizard Ged finally faces the shadow that has been pursuing him and calls it by its name, which is his own,and he is then able to achieve his destiny—to become the Archmage of Earthsea. We must not, like the pair in Maeterlinck's play The Blue Bird, wander the earth in search of fulfillment when it is in our own backyard. What we avoid in our own life will provide the clue to our great battle—to recognize and name our shadow.

Without the challenge of the Dark Power, Frodo, Gandalf, and Galadriel would not have grown.We develop only by going against opposition and facing our shadow. All the characters who won"onwards" found their key to the path to the heart of the universe by looking inward, to the God within, which unlocks all mysteries. If we are successful, there will be no "dweller on the threshold" to confront at death. There will be no secrets of character yet to face. The only secret will be the next unknowable journey.

Cited books by J. R. R. Tolkien:

  • The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1937.

  • The Lord of the Rings. 3 vols. (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King). London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1954-55.

  • The Silmarillion. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1977.

  • Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Helene Vachet, a retired educator who taught "Myths and Magic" in the Los Angeles School District, is a third-generation Theosophist and a past president of the Besant Lodge in Hollywood. She last appeared in the Quest in November-December 2001 with her article on "Harry Potter and the Perennial Quest."

Annie Besant Speaks

Originally printed in the September-October 2000 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: McMain, Deanna Goodrich. "Annie Besant Speaks." Quest  88.5 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2000): pg 184-189.

By Deanna Goodrich McMain

Theosophical Society - Deanna Goodrich McMain, PhD, is a writer, photographer, and student of classical guitar. A former computer programmer, audiologist, and clinical counselor, she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, hiking the mountains of the southwest and staying close to Nature. She served as Silver City Study Center secretary for two years.The following is an imaginary interview with Annie Besant, the second international President of the Theosophical Society and, with Helena Blavatsky, the best known of all Theosophists. As the interview begins, the interviewer notes that Annie Besant is only five feet tall, although most people are unaware of her height because her powerful speech and ideas magnify her diminutive size.

DM: So, Mrs. Besant—"BEZZ-ant" is how you pronounce your name, isn't it?

AB: Yes, it is. Some members of my husband's family, such as his brother, Sir Walter Besant, a well-known man of letters, pronounce the name "bi-ZANT," but when my husband and I separated, I adopted the pronunciation "BEZZ-ant." Of course I was born "Annie Wood."

DM: Yes, I see. Well, Mrs. Besant, could we take just a moment here to learn a little about your early years? Apparently you were English?

AB: Well, I was born in England, regrettably, in 1847, and I was raised there, but I'm proud to say I'm actually three-quarters Irish. My mother was Irish, and my father half Irish and half English. I've always considered myself an Irishwoman.

DM: And your childhood—what was that like?

AB: Oh, it was idyllic. I was called "Sunshine" when I was a girl because I was always happy.

DM: But didn't your father die when you were five?

AB: Yes, and then my mother moved our family to Harrow, where she operated a boarding house for schoolboys. So my brother got a sound education, and when I was eight I was taken in by a wealthy maiden lady and home-schooled until I was 16.

DM: And you obviously got a good education, too. You were lucky to have had this arranged for you as a girl at that time in history, weren't you?

AB: Yes, I was very fortunate there, too. I had a tutor by the name of Ellen Marryat. She taught me literature and languages, and I learned how to study independently, which was quite unusual for a girl at that time.

DM: And you were very religious as a young girl, as I understand it. Could you talk a little about that?

AB: Certainly. I was raised in the Church of England, but I was quite drawn to Catholicism. I felt very much attuned to the religious figures and the ceremony of the Catholic Church. I wanted to have been born at an earlier time. I fasted and even flagellated myself to see if I could bear pain. My tutor, Miss Marryat, was a devout Christian, and I probably developed much of my passion for the Church through her influence.

DM: Can we talk a bit about your marriage now? I know you married a minister, and yet that marriage didn't seem to have been "made in heaven," as they say. How old were you when you married?

AB: I was twenty when I married the Rev. Mr. Frank Besant, by whom I had two children, Digby in 1869 and Mabel in 1870.

DM: Somehow I don't see you as the kind of woman who would marry and raise a family. That takes a lot of time, and you had many causes to work for in your life.

AB: Yes, well, in those days English girls rather idealized clergymen. In addition, I had reconciled myself to the thought of marriage in place of the ascetic religious life which I had envisioned because I would be the wife of a priest, working in the Church and among the poor and doing good for the world. I had hoped my marriage would be a wonderful collaboration, but of course my husband was a product of his time, and I rebelled against the strictures of a Christian marriage of that time.

DM: How so?

AB: Well, my husband believed in male power and female subservience—that wasn't uncommon then—and I had political interests, too, which just added fuel to the fire. Another event that shocked me deeply was earning 30 shillings in payment for some short stories I had written and learning the money wasn't mine, but belonged to Frank! Also society didn't approve of women speaking in public before audiences containing men—meetings with both men and women in the audience were called "promiscuous assemblies," and a woman speaking in one of them was considered immoral. But let me tell you how I discovered my ability to give speeches, as I recorded that discovery in my Autobiographical Sketches (72):

In that spring of 1873 [when 26 years old], I delivered my first lecture. It was delivered to no one, queer as that may sound. And indeed, it was queer altogether. I was learning to play the organ, and was in the habit of practicing in the church by myself. One day, being securely locked in, I thought I would like to try how "it felt" to speak from the pulpit. Some vague fancies were stirring in me, that I could speak if I had the chance; very vague they were, for the notion that I might ever speak on the platform had never dawned on me; only the longing to find outlet in words was in me; the feeling that I had something to say, and the yearning to say it. So, queer as it may seem, I ascended the pulpit in the big, empty, lonely church, and there and then I delivered my first lecture! I shall never forget the feeling of power and of delight which came upon me as my voice rolled down the aisles, and the passion in me broke into balanced sentences, and never paused for rhythmical expression, while I felt that all I wanted was to see the church full of upturned faces, instead of the emptiness of the silent pews. And as though in a dream the solitude became peopled, and I saw the listening faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences came unbidden from my lips, and my own tones echoed back to me from the pillars of the ancient church, I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was mine, that if ever--and it seemed then so impossible--if ever the chance came to me of public work, that at least this power of melodious utterance should win hearing for any message I had to bring.

DM: You are quite an orator indeed! I now have a little understanding of how you might have had a difficult time staying in the kind of marriage you describe. What would you say was the driving factor that led to your separation?

AB: When Mabel was a baby, she suffered a long and painful illness, and I began to doubt the goodness of a God who could inflict such a fate on an innocent child. I read all manner of religious literature, including teachings from the East, and I learned that Jesus was not the only incarnation of the Deity. Then I felt I could no longer take communion. Well, Mr. Besant and I had been increasingly estranged, but the climax came when he commanded me to take communion or leave his home.

DM: So you left home?

AB: Oh, yes, I certainly did. I obtained a legal separation in 1873 and was granted legal custody of Mabel. I became a freethinker and continued to study religious subjects. The next year I met Moncure Conway—a former Methodist minister who had become a Unitarian, then a rationalist—and Charles Bradlaugh, who was an atheist. Charles Bradlaugh and I became friends. I joined his organization and later became co-editor of his atheistic journal, National Reformer. I supported his campaign for election to Parliament and his right to take his seat, which was contested because of his atheism. My friendship with him coupled with my having become an atheist made me the object of attacks. Then in 1877 Mr. Bradlaugh and I published a pamphlet on contraception, and we were tried in a court of law for obscenity! Mind you, this was medical information to protect women's health and to give poor couples the means to limit the size of their families, and it was deemed pornography! I think this course of events brought to national attention the issues of contraception and poverty.

DM: That was a courageous stand for a woman to take in that era.

AB: It was quite a time. The lives of the poor were absolutely wretched, and I felt it was my duty to help them. I had so much compared to them.

DM: Well, you certainly made a difference!

AB: I paid a price! Frank Besant won custody of Mabel—she was wrested right out of my arms, screaming terribly at what was happening to her. I had been declared unfit as a parent. I became very lonely and thought of death. The good news is that when Digby and Mabel came of age they both left their father and returned to me. Many years later, Digby wrote an article saying I was in every way his ideal of a mother.

DM: What an ordeal! What came next in your life?

AB: I became a friend of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright, and through his influence became a Fabian socialist. The Fabians, you know, were a group of socialists who believed in slow, not revolutionary, change in government.

DM: What did you accomplish during your time with the Fabian Society?

AB: For one thing, I studied at London University and received advanced certificates in eight sciences. Then I was elected to the London School Board and served 3 years before I decided not to run for reelection. Meanwhile I was working, speaking, and writing for reform in taxation, Irish home rule, repeal of capital punishment, fair labor laws, national education, and many other issues.

DM: I've read about the match girl strike of 1888, for which you were responsible, in large part.

AB: Yes, that's true. In a London match factory, on the East Side, the workers were mostly girls, including children as young as six years old! They worked from 6:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night. One-eighth of the work force suffered caries of the jaw from constant exposure to the phosphorus fumes. First there was loss of the teeth, then of the jawbone itself. I wrote an article called "White Slavery in London," published in a socialist newspaper so that these conditions would become public knowledge. I sent a copy to the owner of the factory; he replied by threatening legal action. But I also received letters from many of the match girls in support of my work, and finally the fines and deductions levied on the workers were abolished.

DM: And you founded large unions of unskilled workers that eventually corrected many unjust practices.

AB: Yes, I'm glad to say the unions were successful.

DM: I understand you came across The Secret Doctrine by Madame Blavatsky while you were doing this work. How did that occur?

AB: I was beginning to become dissatisfied with the negative aspects of free thought, and so I began researches into spiritualism, hypnotism, and the nature of truth. One day I heard again the same voice I had heard earlier when I was nearly suicidal. It asked, "Are you willing to give up everything for the sake of learning the Truth?" I immediately said, "Yes, Lord." A few days later the publisher of a journal handed me Madame Blavatsky's book The Secret Doctrine to review. I was so impressed with it that I asked for an introduction to Madame Blavatsky. On our second meeting, I applied for membership in the Theosophical Society. Not that it was a particularly easy decision. Part of me fought against it. You see, my work on the London School Board had largely undone public prejudice against me, so I had a smoother road ahead of me. Did I really want to plunge into a new vortex of strife and once again make myself a mark for ridicule by fighting for an unpopular truth? Did I really want to turn against materialism and face the shame of publicly confessing that I had been wrong, misled by intellect to ignore the soul? It was not a clear-cut decision. But I did join and was happy to be in the company of Madame Blavatsky.

DM: What an inspiration that must have been for you to continue your work and your search for truth!

AB: Ah, that it was! That was in 1889. I found in HPB (as she liked to be called) the mother and female guide who did not urge me to curtail my self-development or constrict my truest self to conform to the restricted female role of that time. I brought her into my home to live until she died two years later in 1891.

DM: You plunged right into Theosophy rather quickly, didn't you?

AB: Many people thought I moved too swiftly, but I believe the decision had been long approached and brought into realization the dreams of my childhood. I have gained a certainty of knowledge about life.

DM: How did Madame Blavatsky's death affect your life?

AB: I made my first trip to India in 1894 and began to learn about Indian culture and then began work to revive the people's self-respect and reverence for their own culture, which had been weakened by Western influence. When Col. Olcott, the President-Founder of the Theosophical Society, died in 1907, I was elected as his successor.

DM: What are some of the important events during your tenure as President?

AB: There are many, but the story wouldn't be complete without mention of Jiddu Krishnamurti. My colleague Charles Leadbeater met him on the beach at Adyar when the boy was in his early teen years and recognized in him some very unusual and wonderful qualities. He had an aura about him that led Leadbeater to believe Krishnamurti could become the embodiment of a great teaching. I assumed responsibility for the boy and his brother as their guardian because their mother was dead and their father worked for the Society. I remained personally close to Krishnamurti ever after, although we had several substantial differences of philosophy.

DM: I understand you had major differences with Mohandas Gandhi, too. Could you also say a word about him?

AB: Yes, well, although I was the first to refer to him as "Mahatma," which means Great Soul, he and I did not agree about how to achieve our goals. He was no politician and disliked what some have referred to as my "rampant propaganda." I, on the other hand, disapproved of his form of bringing about social change, which was deliberately to break laws and create confrontations. I thought that policy could lead the ordinary person into a disregard of the law. A great deal more could be said about our differences, but that's enough for the present.

DM: What were some of your accomplishments in India?

AB: I founded the Central Hindu College in Benares, the Theosophical Educational Trust, the Sons and Daughters of India, and the Indian Boy Scout and Girl Guide movements. I also established and edited the New India newspaper in support of home rule for India. I funded the India Home Rule League and was elected President of the Indian National Congress for the year 1917. I drew up the Commonwealth of India Bill and spoke to both houses of Parliament at its presentation.

DM: You wrote quite a lot, too.

AB: Yes, I wrote a great many books, pamphlets, and articles, edited twelve periodicals, and traveled around the world, giving hundreds of lectures in my lifetime.

DM: What were some of the main ideas you wanted to communicate through your writings and speeches? Obviously you were a feminist long before the word existed. You worked tirelessly for women's rights, including their right to know about contraception. And you certainly demonstrated your commitment to serve your fellow humans.

AB: I saw service as the supreme object in life. It is one of the three limbs of the Theosophical movement, along with study and meditation. My book In the Outer Court says that the shorter pathway in our evolution is "service to humanity." I also wrote in Principles of Education that every subject of instruction, whether it be in the area of mental, moral, physical, or religious education, is not only a means toward self-development, but an avenue through which service may be rendered to others. We can cooperate consciously with the divine will in the evolutionary process and at the same time attain a sense of deep peace and great joy.

DM: Another area in which I think you exerted a lot of influence is thought. You wrote a book called Thought Power.

AB: When you consider that our thoughts inevitably determine our actions, you see the great importance of how we think. Right thinking has to be based on right memory, and right memory means that a wrong done to a person is immediately forgotten by that person, but a kindness is treasured and remembered for all time. Right thought and right action are considered in a poem I wrote in 1919:

If a comrade be faithless; let us be faithful to him;If an enemy injure, let us forgive him;If a friend betray, let us stand by him;Then shall the Hidden God in us shine forth.

DM: Yes, you seem to believe in the importance of fostering peace and harmony between individuals. Could you say just a bit more about that?

AB: I talked about that in The Doctrine of the Heart. We need to recognize that the Self in all people is one, so that in each person with whom we come into contact, we ignore all that is unlovely in the outer casing, and recognize the Self seated in the heart. Now I'm speaking of Self with a capital "S." The next thing is to realize—in practice, not only in theory—that the Self is trying to express itself through the casings that obstruct it, and that the inner nature is altogether lovely but is distorted in our awareness by the envelopes that surround us. We should identify ourselves with that Self, which is indeed ourselves in its essence, and cooperate with it in its efforts to rise above the elements that stifle its expression.

DM: What can you say about how we might develop our power to think and to use our thought for good?

AB: We might begin by comparing the mind to a mirror. A mirror appears to have objects within it, yet it does not. What we see in the mirror are only images, illusions, reflections. In the same way, the mind knows only the illusive images of the universe, not things themselves. The first requirement for competent thinking is attentive, accurate observation. If you are not accurate, you will compound your errors so that nothing can correct them except going back to the very beginning. And you can develop your powers of accuracy just by observing and testing yourself. How can we develop our power to think? One way is by learning to concentrate. That is a key to thought power. Reading by itself does not build the mind; thought alone can build it. Reading only furnishes material for thought; therefore you should read for five minutes and think for ten.

DM: What if I'm a worrier? How can I stop that?

AB: Worry is the process of repeating the same train of thought over and over with only small alterations, and not only coming to no end result but not even aiming at the reaching of a result. Probably the best way to get rid of the "worry-channel" is to dig another of exactly opposite character. You do this by giving three or four minutes in the morning, when you first get up, to an encouraging or positive thought, such as "The Self is peace; that Self am I. The Self is strength; that Self am I." During this time you also consider that you are one with God and mistakenly regard your pain and your anxiety as yourself. Nothing can injure us that is not brought to us by our own previous willing and acting. The great law of karma works to free us by forcing us to face the debts that keep us in prison tied to the whirling wheel of births and deaths.

DM: Thank you so much, Mrs. Besant, for being here with us. Is there anything else you would like to leave us?

AB: Perhaps I will end with a little piece I wrote about my loyalty to Truth:

She may lead me into the wilderness,Yet I must follow her; She may strip me of all I love,Yet I must pursue her;Though she slay me, Yet will I trust in her; And I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but "She tried to follow Truth."

Deanna Goodrich McMain, PhD, is a writer, photographer, and student of classical guitar. A former computer programmer, audiologist, and clinical counselor, she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, hiking the mountains of the southwest and staying close to Nature. She served as Silver City Study Center secretary for two years.

God Is At Eye Level

Originally printed in the September-October 2000 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Phillips, Jan. "God Is At Eye Level." Quest  88.5 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2000): pg 172-174.

By Jan Phillips

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower--the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence. --Helen Keller

Theosophical Society - Jan Phillips has authored the Quest Books God Is at Eye Level: Photography as a Healing Art (from which this article is taken) and Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity (a 1998 Ben Franklin Award book). She has published in the New York Times, Ms Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Christian Science Monitor, and Utne Reader. She has presented workshops to more than 10,000 people in 23 countries.I sometimes awaken from a dream hearing a faint whisper of words coming from a place that feels very far away. Dream telegrams, a friend calls them. Not long ago, I heard the voice again, this time whispering the words, "God is at eye level." I smiled myself awake, wishing I could talk back to this voice or visit the place where it was coming from.

The words lingered throughout the day, the weeks, and even now, when I'm out photographing, they are always there in the spaciousness of my mind. Through the woods, along the beach, in the streets of downtown, wherever I am with my camera around my neck, I hear that hushed voice--"God is at eye level," repeating over and over like a mantra.

At an early age, I learned that God was a particular Being who dwelled in a place far from where I ever stood. My perception of God has changed dramatically over the years. I am guided now not so much by teachings that have come down to me, but by learnings that have risen up from within--a shift that began thirty years ago when I was a young postulant in a religious community taking my first theology class.

The Jesuit priest stood in front of the room and asked each of us what we believed about God. One by one we recited our beliefs, recalling sentences from the Baltimore Catechism about who God was, why He made us, what He wanted from us. The priest challenged those beliefs one by one, tore them apart, belittled them as nothing more than memorized statements, versions of someone else's opinion.

He took a hammer to our naive image of God and shattered it. I started to cry, hating him, wondering how he could do this, how could he stand there and destroy God when we'd just given our whole lives over to God, left behind everything to be with God. It was a moment of devastating loss, incomprehensible sadness. I felt as if everything I believed in, everything on which I had based my life, was no longer true. The silence in the room was deafening; the void I felt, terrifying. We sat there, thirty of us, for what seemed an eternity, reckoning with the obliteration of God as we had known Him.

Finally the priest broke the silence. "You must come to know what is true about God from your own experience," he said. "Arrive at a faith that is deeper than your learning, one that is rooted in your ultimate concern and rises up from the nature of who you are." He said that we needed to let go of beliefs and conjure up a faith of commitment, one that rises up from within ourselves, from a deep awareness of our own godliness. The biblical paradox that says you must lose your life in order to find your life was beginning to make sense.

Self-realization is the actualization of our own divinity. It is a recognition of ourselves in all things and all things in ourselves, found through the simple contemplation of things as they are. The opposite of selfishness, it is a manifestation of ourselves as gift to and mirror to others. The deeper one's self-awareness, the clearer reflection one can offer.

Self-realization is an exploration into the complexities and contradictions of life, an attempt to plumb the opposites until we arrive finally at the Oneness that contains them. It is a painstaking process of observation, an astute and relentless probing into reality, past our learned illusions of separateness into the profound experience of connectedness.

When we observe something deeply, we enter into it, become one with it. Something of its essence enters into us, and we are changed in the process. When we read a novel, see a play, or listen to a story, we enter into its world, place ourselves in the scene and experience the drama and conflicts as if they were ours. We often come away from someone else's creation with a deeper understanding of our own story.

The Italian poet and Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo wrote that "poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own." All things reveal us to ourselves. If we look deeply enough into an oak tree or mountain stream, into a photograph or other work of art, we will find ourselves there. And if we linger, listening intently, it will speak to us in a language divine, a language of light, symbol, metaphor.

In the process of observing, of being wholly attentive, we are liberated momentarily from our sense of separateness, rapt in a oneness with the subject of our gaze--a connection as real as that of lovers who have felt their spiritual beings merge in another dimension as their earthly bodies join together. We all crave this oneness, this holy and mystical union, and are willing to travel to the ends of the earth to find it. Yet it is ours to experience in every moment, wherever we are. This oneness is the Tao, the ever-flowing reality--all in each of us and each in all. The accurate perception of our relationship to every living thing leads to awakening, to self-realization, to the experience and expression of God in the world through our artistic creations and through our compassion for one another.

Diarmuid O'Murchu, a priest and social psychologist, writes in Quantum Theology: "Observation gives way to relationship, a complex mode of interacting, fluctuating between giving and receiving, until a sense of resonance emerges, whereby the individual parts lose their dualistic, independent identities, but rediscover a sense of the 'quantum self' in the interdependent relationship of the new whole, which might be anything from the marriage of two people to a newly felt bond with the universe itself."

Observation gives way to relationship, and relationship heals and sustains us. Whether with one other or with many, with children, with animals, with nature, it is our sense of relatedness that keeps us whole and balanced. In contemplating things as they are, we experience the life force in living things, awaken to the consciousness throbbing in every being, every molecule and atom. On some profound and mysterious level, we fully understand our relation to the Whole. Only our thinking keeps us separate; only our beliefs keep us from finding the Divine in the substance of our daily lives.

In my quest for the Infinite, I have come to believe that God, Truth, Beauty, Love--all those concepts I associate with the Divine--are not things that are "found" at the end of the path, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but are rather what I experience on the journey as I travel through life--or perhaps, more explicitly, they are the journey itself.

God, to me, is the universe unfolding, the power and potential within all life, the oak within our acorn selves. Not one bit separate, but fused with us like salt and the sea, ever-present in the faces, the scenes, the feelings that pass through our lives day to day.

When I pause long enough to really look--as one must in the act of photographing--I am seized by this awareness, that everywhere I look, there God is. In the smooth gray bark of the eucalyptus, the immense bulk of the polar bear, the eyes of that hungry child, that angry customer, that tattooed teenager. I forget, when I'm not really looking, that something deep and beautiful is below the surface. But when I'm photographing, that is all I remember, all I seek to capture--that essence within things.

Photography heals because it reveals this essence. In the process of looking, finding, framing, and shooting, all one's energies are focused purely. In the attempt to capture a piece of life in a fraction of a second, one waits mindfully, perfectly attentive, for the right alignment of shape and light, tone and texture, color and contrast. One waits for the cloud to come or go, for the child to forget there is anyone looking, for the fawn to rise up from its cozy bed of green. In these moments of waiting, a oneness occurs between the seer and the seen, and they become, knowingly or not, cocreators of an image that will endure beyond the present and have an effect, a healing power of its own.

As I think back on the inner voices that informed my looking before I knew I was seeking God at eye level, I'm conscious of a variety of them. When I first started photographing, the voice spoke a simple, "Don't forget this." I'd photograph people, places, or events that had meaning and joy I didn't want to lose sight of. Photographing meant I could keep an image to savor later, reflect on, and find myself in when I was lost.

Eventually, as I improved in the craft, another voice came along, whispering, "Share this." Then my looking was informed by a desire to pass along what I was seeing that another might miss. I photographed beautiful landscapes and flowers, put them into a slide show with music, and for the first time ventured out, sharing my images in the hope that they would lift up others as they'd lifted me.

In time, that voice gave way to another that said, "Your images can make a difference in the world--let them." As an activist for peace, I photographed disarmament rallies around the nation and traveled the world showing these images in an effort to reflect a consciousness of compassion and peace.

And as I traveled, among Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Communist, Arab, Israeli, Catholic, Protestant people--all of whom housed, fed, and nourished me in profound ways--the voice behind my looking changed to "You are one with each of these," and my photography grew in intimacy, in power, in conviction, colored forever by this new awareness of union, of non-separateness, of family.

Though I can't know for certain if it's the same with all photographers, my guess is that all of our looking is informed by a deeper voice, a compelling passion that takes us to the edge from which we look and directs our gaze toward that which we seek.

Each of us listens to a different voice within, but if we are true to the voice that is speaking in our hearts, the images we make will heal our wounds, mend our brokenness. If we think clearly and carefully about the power of our images and, in our looking, see past the barriers, the walls that have been constructed between one person and another, we may one day stumble upon the Divine we've been trying all along to find.

Whenever I'm tempted to speak of God, the words of Lao Tzu come to mind: "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know." I think that God, like love, is more aptly defined by what it isn't than by what it is. I think of Meister Eckhart, the Christian mystic, who says that the ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God--the final letting go of the limited concept for an experience of the real thing.

When I was young, I prayed to be a martyr. I wanted to show God and everyone else that I loved Him enough to die for him. I wanted to go into battle for Him, be another Joan of Arc, a hero for God's sake.

Now all that's changed. I wouldn't think of dying for God, but am doing my best to live for God--with God, in God, with God in me. There are no more lines of separation, only strands of connectedness. My eyes find God everywhere, in every living thing, creature, person, in every act of kindness, act of nature, act of grace.

Everywhere I look, there God is, looking back, looking straight back.

Jan Phillips has authored the Quest Books God Is at Eye Level: Photography as a Healing Art (from which this article is taken) and Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity (a 1998 Ben Franklin Award book). She has published in the New York Times, Ms Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Christian Science Monitor, and Utne Reader. She has presented workshops to more than 10,000 people in 23 countries. Her Web site is www.janphillips.com .

  1. The Play of the Mind: Form, Emptiness, and Beyond
  2. The Mystic Path to Inner Peace
  3. Viewpoint: Lucifer: What's in a Name
  4. The Theosophical Odyssey of D. M. Bennett, Part One

Subcategories

Book Reviews

Menu