Quest Magazine

Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. New York: Scribner, 1996. Hardcover, 608 pages.

Mary's Vineyard: Meditations, Readings, and Revelations, by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut. Wheaton, II.: Theosophical Publishing House (Quest Books), 1996. Hardcover, 193 pages.

Handbook for the Soul. Edited by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. Softcover, 215 pages.

Handbook for the Heart. Edited by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. Hardcover, 226 pages.

New books aimed at providing guidance on living the spiritual life are flooding into bookstores. Those listed above stand out for their fine selections of readings from many sources. The Brussats guide the reader, in prose, poetry, and prayers, to consideration of the many aspects of life experience. They have divided their choices of material under categories of things, places, nature, animals, leisure, creativity, service, body, relationships, and community.

In addition, they have created an "alphabet of spiritual literacy" on aspects of spiritual practice-such as attention, beauty, being present, compassion, and so on. Their contemplations on these are scattered throughout the book, surrounded by readings from many traditions. Along the way they also include activities and exercises to aid in the spiritual journey.

The authors issue an open invitation to all who wish to join them on the spiritual path, which is by no means an exclusive club:

Spiritual literacy is not concerned with sorting out religious dogmas and beliefs. To be spiritually literate does not require you to master certain texts or to climb to a high rung on the ladder of enlightenment. It is not an esoteric and mysterious practice for the initiated few; indeed, spiritual literacy is the very opposite of such elitism. Some of the most spiritually literate people are children and indigenous people who cannot even read letters on a page. For them and for us, literacy means being able to find sacred meaning in all aspects of life.

The reader can dip at random into the Brussats' book and sharpen the senses of sight, sound, smell, touch - as well as find much food for thought. The authors have devoted themselves for three decades to identifying and reviewing resources for people on spiritual journeys, and that devotion shows in this except ional book. Their projects have included the magazine Values and Visions, the Odyssey cable TV channel, and the Ecunet computer network.

The gifted poet and translator Andrew Harvey and his collaborator Eryk Hanut, photographer, writer, director, and set designer, have produced a beautiful book of meditations, readings, photographs, and spiritual insights on Mary as the Divine Mother. Mary's Vineyard is organized for use throughout the year with daily readings and contemplations. "Creating a sacred environment is not complicated," they write; "it just requires concentration and the constant reminder that the one important thing in your life is to keep your heart open to Divine Love."

Andrew Harvey's books have included The Return of the Mother, Hidden Journey: A Spiritual Awakening, and A Journey in Ladakh, which won the Christmas Humphries Prize. He has also published books of his translations of Rumi, the Sufi poet, as well as a recent book about Rumi, The Way of the Heart.

Two exceptional anthologies of spiritual writing have been assembled by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield. Handbook for the Soul and Handbook for the Heart gather original writings by authors including Lynn Andrews, Deepak Chopra, Robert Fulghum, Harold Kushner, Thomas Moore, Hugh and Gayle Prather, Ram Dass, Bernie Siegel, Andrew Weil, and Marianne Williamson. The first of these books places its focus on helping the reader to achieve balance in life. T he second book concentrates on the theme of love. The editors are both therapists who have been frequent guests on radio and television programs in addition to maintaining private practices.

-WILLIAM METZGER

March 1997

by David Reigle
Book of Dzyan Research Report Cotopaxi, CO: Eastern School Press, 1997. Pp. 8.

This second in a series of discussions of the technical terms used in the Stanzas of Dzyan points out that of seven such terms in stanza 2, two occur also in stanza I (Ah-hi and Paranishpanna) and so need no further treatment (see American Theosophist, 84.3 [Late Spring 1996], 14), and four are relatively straight forward: manvantara, maya, devimatri and matripadma. That leaves only swabhavat, but it is a very great problem indeed.

Swabhavat is the essence or substance principle underlying both spirit and matter, also called mulaprakriti. In The Mahatma Letters the concept and term are attributed to "the Nepaulese Swabhavikas, the principal Buddhist philosophical school in India." But Reigle's efforts to document that attribution ran into a variety of difficulties, which he reports in this study. The problems are in the form of the term (svabhava is more usual), the existence of a Swabhavika school, and the meaning of the term, which Reigle says was rejected by both the Vedantins and existing Buddhist schools.

Reigle's last word is that a Svabhavika tradition may have existed in Nepal in the nineteenth century, as reported by early Buddhist scholars, but have died out. To document it, however, would require searching thousands of pages of Sanskrit texts. Reigle concludes: "Theosophists will have to find it, because no one else is likely to be interested." But the finder will also have to be one like Reigle himself, with background and interest in these philological and historical matters. We hope one day for a monograph on svabhava and the Svabhavikas from his pen.

February 1997

K. Paul Johnson's House of Cards?

A critical examination of Johnson's thesis on the Theosophical Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi, by Daniel H. Caldwell. P. 0. Box 1844, Tucson, AZ85702: published by the author, November 1996. Pp, 43.

The purpose of this monograph, according to the author, is to give a critique of K. Paul Johnson's thesis relating to H. P. Blavatsky's Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi.  Johnson in his own introduction to The Masters Revealed [1994, 5-6] summarizes this hypothesis as follows:

Thakar Singh Sandhanwalia, founding president of the Amritsar Singh Sabha, corresponds in intriguing ways to clues about- Koot Hoomi's identity in the writings of Olcott and HPB, .. Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Kashmir has many correspondences to Morya as described by HPB.... Although much of HPB's portrayal of Morya and Koot Hoomi was designed to mislead in order to protect their privacy, enough accurate information was included to make a persuasive case for their identities as these historical figures.

Caldwell analyzes the techniques used in supporting the hypothesis of this identification and examines in detail the best primary evidence on the question, especially the accounts written by Henry Steel Olcott and others concerning their encounters with and knowledge of the persons in question. The monograph includes an appendix by David Reigle on Tibetan sources purportedly used by HPB.

Caldwell (41) concludes:

Johnson has devoted a great deal of time and effort in researching various portions of H. P. Blavatsky's life and the historical identities of her Masters. Johnson's books should he read by every Theosophist and occult student.

Unfortunately, Johnson's books are marred by numerous serious mistakes and inaccuracies.

All in all, Johnson's "identifications'' of the two Masters don't withstand a critical analysis of the sum total of evidence and testimony concerning the adepts involved. I believe that anyone who carefully studies the evidence and seriously thinks through the issues involved will reasonably conclude that Johnson's so-called "persuasive case" about the Masters M and K.H. is nothing but a "house of cards." Even as "suggestions," Johnson's conjectures on these two Masters are highly implausible and dubious when carefully scrutinized in light of all the known facts.

February 1997

The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity

by Paul Heelas
Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Pp. x + 266.

The author of this scholarly, serious, and not unfriendly study of the New Age movement: is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Cultural Values and a Reader (roughly equivalent to an American Associate Professor) in the Department of Religious Studies of Lancaster University. The book examines the origins, development, characteristics, and import of the New Age movement, especially in Britain and America.

The New Age movement: is viewed in relationship to "modernity," that: is roughly, contemporary mainstream views and practices. The New Age is said to be ambivalent about mainstream society, on the one hand offering a spiritual alternative to its religious values and on the other hand exemplifying and celebrating some of the characteristics of our time.

Theosophy is treated as part of the New Age movement, three key figures in its incipient development being identified as H. P. Blavatsky, Carl Gustav Jung, and George I. Gurdjieff. However, Theosophy does not figure largely in this study, for the author sees it: as historically seminal rather than contemporarily central to the movement: "Even the Theosophical headquarters in Madras is no longer New Age -and this despite the fact that: the Society (founded in New York) is generally accorded a significant: role in the development of what has happened in the west" (122).

That view is only half right. It is true that contemporary Theosophy is not distinctively New Age; indeed, many Theosophists would think of themselves and of the Society as Perennial Age rather than New Age. Yet there are clearly links between Theosophy and the New Age movement. In as far as the latter has a core Set of ideas, they arc largely compatible with and indeed derived from Theosophy. Most of the ideas set forth as characterizing the New Age in appendix 1 (225-6) are familiarly Theosophical.

The error in the author's view is in assuming that: modern Theosophy has ever been New Age, in the current sense of the term. Certain characteristics of the New Age are nor traditionally Theosophical ones. For example, the New Age is typically anti- or at least non-intellectual; Theosophy has always been in one sense an intellectual movement. Blavatsky spoke of it as a form of jñana yoga, union through knowledge, and the early appeal of Theosophy was to the intelligentsia of both West and East.

Also the New Age is generally countercultural, that is, opposed in lifestyle to the prevailing culture. Theosophists have often been superficially countercultural (for example, being vegetarians and eschewers of furs before such practices became fashionable). But in other ways, they have generally been conventional, educated, middle-class, professional, involved citizens. Relatively few were ever of the drop-out, turn-on persuasion that was much more typical of the early New Age movement.

The New Age tends, as the subtitle of this book indicates, to celebrate and focus upon the "self," that is, the sense of personal identity. Key expressions in this book are self-actualization, self-empowerment, self-enhancement, self-ethic, self-help, self-responsibility, self-spirituality, and self-work ethic. Theosophy too is centrally concerned with "self" bur distinguishes between the personal transitory self, the individual abiding Self, and the transcendent cosmic SELF. Its message is that: of Delphi and the Upanishads: know yourself and, knowing that, nothing else need be known. But the "self" which is to be known in Theosophy is something radically different from that of pop self-culture.

This book is a useful work for the information it contains. A casual reader may find it numbingly data-filled, and the interpretation of the data is sometimes superficial. But the book's virtue is that it contains facts and examines them without either credulity or incredulity and without either naivete or condescension.

-JOHN ALGEO

January 1997 and June 1997