Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor’s Desk" Quest 110:1, pg 2

We all have our critics, I suppose, and the Theosophical Society in America is no exception.

What do these critics accuse us of doing?

Nothing.

I mean it: they accuse the TSA of doing nothing. By these accounts, the Olcott staff are sitting proud at our national headquarters, living like rentiers from the proceeds of our investment trust and the largesse of The Kern Foundation, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Indeed we rely on these sources of support and remain grateful to those who have provided them. But these sources are limited and do not permit us to do all the work we do and wish to do.

One important, but often overlooked, aspect of our work is featured in this issue: our Prison Program. National secretary David Bruce outlines some of its history and accomplishments in his article in this issue. In their articles, longtime program members Chadwick Wallace and Aaron Krocker talk about their experience from a first-person perspective.

I don’t participate directly in the Prison Program, but even so, I get any number of letters from prisoners on a variety of topics, indicating that their interest is not only real but often quite advanced.

I occasionally see glimpses of the strange distortions of prison life. A few years ago, by an odd sequence of events, I got a now deceased prisoner thrown into the cooler. I had exchanged a letter or two with him, and he even sent me a copy of a book on the Advaita Vedanta, which I still have.

This prisoner mentioned that he wanted a copy of Schopenhauer’s classic The World as Will and Representation. I looked it up on Amazon, and there was a copy that cost only $15. It was around Christmas, so I thought, “What the hell,” and ordered one to be sent to him.

According to Amazon on the day I ordered it, this book was available. A few days later, Amazon decided it wasn’t and, instead of the book, sent the prisoner an Amazon gift card for the equivalent amount.

Unfortunately, prisoners aren’t supposed to have money on hand, and an Amazon gift card was close enough to get him into trouble with the authorities.

Eventually I had to write to the warden to explain all of this and to intervene for mercy.

This episode taught me that people on the outside can watch all the Shawshank Redemptions and Green Miles they like, but they’re still not going to understand the pervasive strangeness of American prisons.

I have no interest in ranting against the gross dysfunctions of America’s penal system: plenty of other people are doing that. My purpose is simply to point out that the Theosophical Society does a lot of good work that largely goes unnoticed.

It has done so with remarkable frugality. Over the last decade, the TS has offset income losses through any number of means, one of which is staff cutbacks. Last year, a couple of management consultants came in to take a look at our operation. One of them said that our workforce is not only lean but “emaciated.”

As you may have noticed from the house ads in recent issues, the TS has taken steps to remedy these deficiencies. One of the most important has been the addition of a full-time fundraiser in the person of Dave Forsell. I was greatly heartened when Dave came on staff.

Then there is the Olcott headquarters. One recent visitor described it as her “spiritual home,” even though she had never been there before.

Community is a tough issue in America. We are a nation of loners and drifters. Classic American literature shows us this side of ourselves: crazy Ahab on the Pequod, isolated by his madness; Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi on his raft; Gatsby pining away in his ostentatious mansion.

In 2000, sociologist Robert Putnam published a famous book on the solitude of American life, entitled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. It is, no doubt, sad that people bowl alone these days, but a bowling league is a rather frail and adventitious community. In an age where people lose their faith as often as their car keys and move an average 11.7 times over their lives, churches and towns are scarcely more durable.

We seem isolated even in our contributions. One always comes back to the same question: how much good am I doing? It is commonplace to say that if you make a difference to even one life, you have accomplished something great. I have no quarrel with that, but often it does not feel that way. As René Guénon said, we live during the reign of quantity, and even if one contributes something of quality to a small number of people, it may not seem to have much value.

There is not really much of an answer to that complaint, except to return to the principle of nonattachment: one does what good one can without regard to results or consequences, most of which are invisible to us anyway. Is it enough? Possibly, possibly not; but I have the strong impression that paying attention to quantity in this regard is little more than a distraction.

Richard Smoley

Printed in the  Winter 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Wyatt, Tim, "The Crisis Was the Catalyst" Quest 110:1, pg 14-15

By Tim Wyatt

Hoary old clichés such as “every crisis is an opportunity in disguise” or “necessity is the mother of invention” may sound like platitudes, but the past two years have shown that they resonate with truth. Human beings, as imperfect as they may be, are both ingenious and adaptable when dealing with difficult challenges. Few of these have been more demanding than the Covid-19 pandemic.

Somewhat controversially, I’m suggesting that a microscopic corona-shaped virus, which has killed millions and reshaped everyone’s lives, may have done more to promote the Ageless Wisdom than anything else in recent decades. Could the pandemic have inadvertently accelerated the creation of that elusive and long-sought “nucleus of the brotherhood of humanity” (the Theosophical Society’s First Object)?

This may sound crass, exaggerated, even outrageous. It may appear totally paradoxical that during a worldwide lockdown of travel bans, social distancing, and numerous other restrictions, new connections and networks have been formed—not by face-to-face contact but in cyberspace. Deprived of personal contact, new, ad hoc, often isolated, Theosophical communities have sprung up online over the past few months. There are hundreds of them. My view is that the crisis was the catalyst for the development of these groups.

I’m convinced that a new dynamic energy is fast emerging in the Theosophical movement. For decades, some Theosophists have agonized about how to develop more modern and effective ways of delivering the esoteric teachings than books, lodge meetings, study groups, and conferences (as useful as these can be).

Digital technologies, which enable people in different locations to link up simultaneously online, have been around for a while and are widely used by business and interest groups. But it took a world upheaval for things to begin happening in our own sphere and for words like Zoom or Skype to become common parlance among esotericists.

As someone relatively technophobic and suspicious of the ubiquitous digital invasion, I had deep reservations about much of this development at the start. Somehow (no doubt through necessity) I was able to suspend my prejudices and embrace this brave new world with a zeal I didn’t know I had. To use religious terminology, it was something akin to graduating from being an atheist to a cardinal in a single move.

Since the pandemic struck, I somehow intuitively tapped into this new current of online working. I’ve participated in, organized, or given talks in dozens of these. Across the world, from the U.S. to the Philippines and from Russia to Brazil, new initiatives have emerged. Organizations such as the European School of Theosophy have been especially prolific, putting on 200 presentations in a year.

The Leeds Theosophical Society in Yorkshire, England, where I’m active, has been more modest in its output, with twenty-one fortnightly online talks since last autumn. Other U.K. lodges have put on similar programs. This all stacks up to a lot of activity worldwide, with thousands of participants.

Early on in this process, I realized that in this Zoom and Skype era, there’s no such thing as a local lodge meeting any longer. If we continue to stream lodge events when we eventually meet in person once more, there never will be again. By the second or third talk in Leeds, it struck me that not only were we attracting participants from the local area or even from the rest of the U.K., but visitors from half a dozen European countries, North and South America, Russia, and India were also joining us—despite the time differences.

The upshot is that I’ve probably encountered and communicated with more Theosophists and those with esoteric interests in the past twelve months than during the previous fifteen years of my membership of the TS.

This innovative way of communication was already being used by some Theosophists before the virus hit, but it was low-key. The pandemic suddenly became an accelerant; without it, this process almost certainly wouldn’t have happened as quickly or become so widespread.

Even more importantly, both the infrastructure and inclination now exist for the potential creation of a vibrant and realistic entity we call brotherhood. This century-and-half-old aspiration has been problematic for the TS, not least because of the many different ways it’s been interpreted (or possibly misinterpreted).

This new, fluid, interactive community of the like-minded has been liberated from the restrictions imposed by traditional structured organizations bound by rules, committees, and the inevitable cabals which form. If we’re honest, the history of the TS is replete with internal power struggles, personality clashes, and hostilities bordering on civil war within some Sections down the years, and which continue today.

Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that brotherhood as a living, breathing interconnectedness has gone from being a distant dream to an achievable reality within a few short months? This may be somewhat overoptimistic, but I believe that recent events have provided a fresh impetus to link up the like-minded, which is something to build on.

I know some people still resist this way of doing things. Some, like me, have become somewhat Zoomed out. I also remain extremely wary of invasive technology. Besides, staring at a laptop screen is no substitute for meeting face-to-face, even if you don’t have to leave your kitchen table. But it’s all we’ve had. To my mind we’ve used it well, and I hope we’ll continue to do so.

As we’re reminded every day, not all online interactions are positive or purposeful. You’ve only got to look at the verbal poisons surging through the grubby backwaters of social media to know that this form of communication has its perils. Indeed, one event in which I participated was “Zoom-bombed” by a bunch of foul-mouthed cyberanarchists, who plastered obscenities on the screen for no good reason other than they could. But this was a one-off.

We know esoterically that intention is everything. The way these new online methods have been used for discussion forums or educational endeavors by Theosophists has been, in my opinion, largely positive.

New networks have come into being and grown with the same vigor as the virus itself. These networks have overlapped, sometimes producing new ones. Still more are gestating in people’s minds, to emerge in the delivery rooms of cyberspace sometime soon.

The events I’ve described demonstrate another important (although sometimes unwelcome) Theosophical truth: all archaic forms are destined to perish to make way for new ones. Their destruction is not only inevitable but vital in ensuring that creative progress continues.

Tim Wyatt is an esoteric writer, researcher, and organizer. He is an international lecturer for the Theosophical Society and travels widely across Europe. He is the founder of the School of Applied Wisdom in Leeds, Yorkshire, and also helps to run Leeds Theosophical Society. His books include Cycles of Eternity: An Overview of the Ageless Wisdom and Everyone’s Book of the Dead (reviewed in Quest, summer 2021). These are available from www.firewheelbooks.co.uk.

Printed in the  Winter 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hebert, Barbara, "Viewpoint: Unifying the Rainbow" Quest 110:1, pg 12-13

By Barbara Hebert
National President

A community is composed of a group of people brought together by something they have in common—living in the same city; attending the same place of worship; allegiance to a particular school or university. There are communities that are online as well as ones that are in person. There are communities of people who love to create quilts, who belong to a book club, or who are committed to ecological conservation. There are bird-watching communities. The number of communities that are formed from varied circumstances may give us pause. How many do you belong to?

Many consider themselves part of the community of the Theosophical Society in America. If an individual is part of a local lodge or study center, that may form another Theosophical community to which the person belongs. Friends of the Theosophical Society feel closely aligned with its teachings and thus may consider themselves part of the Theosophical community in that way. People around the world share the Society’s ideals as stated in the Three Objects and are members of the Theosophical Society in their own countries. Therefore we also come together as a global Theosophical community. 

Being a member of a community is important for human beings, most of whom have lived this way since the beginning of recorded history. Through our communities, we feel belonging and purpose; we are affiliated with others who care about the same things as we do. We learn from, support, and encourage one another, giving us a sense of connection and helping us to feel safer and more accepted. All of this gives comfort in a world that is rarely comfortable.

The First Object of the Theosophical Society is frequently interpreted as advocating for the creation of a nucleus of humanity without any separateness. The concept of community seems to fall into wonderful alignment with this object, since, as we have seen, communities are composed of individuals who are bound together by a common interest. However, there may be other ways of considering this alignment of community and the creation of a nucleus of humanity without separation.

Like many aspects of the Ageless Wisdom, this seems to present a paradox. Communities can encourage division. We tend to see our own as somehow better or more important than others. For example, if I belong to the local university community, then I have no allegiance to the university in another city or state. Being from Louisiana, I think about the tremendous local support for and loyalty to Louisiana State University and its football team. Yet the competition among football teams in the Southeastern Conference, such as between the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University, hardly fosters unity between these communities. Some years ago, the rivalry between Auburn University and the University of Alabama was so intense that a member of the Auburn community poisoned trees on the University of Alabama campus. 

Some may say that this rivalry (apart from harmful acts) is just for fun; it doesn’t really mean anything. But according to the Ageless Wisdom, it does mean something. The esoteric philosophy tells us that everything that we think, say, feel, and do has an impact on the world around us. 

We can look at other areas in which communities may cause division, both today and through the years. It is not difficult to think about the divisions caused by allegiance to various religious communities through the ages. Intolerance, exacerbated to the point of persecution, is rife in history and continues to the current day. While one may assume that being of a particular religion does not necessarily engender intolerance or persecution, the perspective of “our tradition” versus “their tradition” is at the basis of such divisions.

We can look further, to racial and cultural intolerance and persecution, and so on. How often do we need to see this repeated before we put a stop to it?

Any time we think in terms of “my,” we are creating division: my town, my school, my place of worship, my organization. Communities, by their very nature, encourage an internal cohesiveness that separates them from others.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that communities are wrong or bad. They provide us with a great deal, but we must look deeper and go further. As students who are ever inquiring, we must question anything that potentially causes division, no matter how slight.

Think of a bright white light shining through a prism. The light is dispersed in an array of rainbow colors, ostensibly dividing it into seven separate rays. However, these rainbow colors intrinsically remain the white light. The online Encyclopedia Britannica states: “White light entering a prism is bent, or refracted, and the light separates into its constituent wavelengths. Each wavelength of light has a different color and bends at a different angle.” The constituent colors, at their essence, are the white light. They are only perceived differently, seen as different colors, because of their specific wavelengths as they are refracted through the prism. 

This same law holds true for us as well, according to the esoteric teachings, which say we are manifestations of the One Source (or God, Parabrahm, Allah, or whatever one may choose to name it). Because of various “wavelengths,” we appear to be different and unique, yet our essence remains that of the One Source. We are intrinsically the various aspects of the One Source; therefore, we are not separate in any way, regardless of appearances.

This teaching goes far deeper. Unify, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, means “to make into a unit, a coherent whole.” This implies that whatever we are trying to unify has not been a unit or a whole previously. When we unify something, we are bringing what has previously been separate together in some way. 

Continuing with our example of white light and rainbows, if we try to unify the colors of the rainbow, we will not create white light. If one uses crayons to draw a rainbow, then overlays it with all of the rainbow colors in an effort to unify them, the result is a muddy brown. In order to get white light, the colors must return the way they came. The rainbow colors must be radiated through another prism, which will show the white light from which they originally came. Unifying the colors will not bring about the desired result simply because they have never truly been separate from the white light; rather, they just appeared to be different.

We cannot unify ourselves because we have never truly been separate; we have only appeared to be. Unifying the various communities that exist in our world will not bring about the depth of oneness that the Ageless Wisdom teaches. This concept requires more than simply looking within: it requires meditation and contemplation, the opportunity to hear the voice within in order to recognize the innate oneness that binds all of life together. This needs to be our focus, far beyond and much deeper than any community with which we may align ourselves.

Recognizing and living the truth of this inherent oneness is part of our spiritual journey. Our real community is our essential oneness with all living beings.

Printed in the  Winter 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Parry, David William, "Blavatsky, Christian Theosophy, and Russian Orthodoxy" Quest 110:1, pg 30-33

By David William Parry

H.P. Blavatsky had a deep respect for Eastern Orthodoxy that is seemingly at odds with her other writings on Judaism and Christianity. To explore this question, it would be best to start by examining Christian theosophy as a continuous spiritual current before moving on to HPB’s travels and her personal religious orientation.

Christian Theosophy

Theosophy as a generic term refers to a range of psychospiritual dispositions still present in the church. They focus on the attainment of direct, unmediated, knowledge of the Divine Nature, as well as the purpose of the universe overall. Theosophy in this sense is a form of Western esotericism that claims to hold a hidden transpersonal wisdom, or knowledge, from the ancient past that offers a path towards enlightened consciousness as well as deliverance from the crippling vicissitudes of mundane existence.

The French scholar of esotericism Antoine Faivre defines theosophy as a structured ideology whereby seekers approach “a gnosis that has a bearing not only on the salvific relations the individual maintains with the divine world, but also on the nature of God Himself, or of divine persons, and on the natural universe, the origin of that universe, the hidden structures that constitute it in its actual state, its relationship to mankind, and its final ends” (Faivre, 23).

The word theosophy was originally applied to the thought of the seventeenth-century German visionary Jacob Boehme. The generic term theosophy was adopted by the nascent Theosophical Society in 1875, and since then Theosophy (capitalized) has come to refer to the teachings and ideas promoted by the Society’s leaders, including Blavatsky, C.W. Leadbeater, and Annie Besant.

It could be argued that contemporary Theosophy follows a route starting from the Renaissance onward as a single stream beneath forms of early modern Western thought such as alchemy, astrology, Hermeticism, Christian Kabbalah, Paracelsism, occult philosophy, and Rosicrucianism. In any event, Christian theosophy in itself is an underexamined area about which a general history has yet to be written.

Blavatsky’s Travels

Blavatsky herself was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church immediately after her birth. Her father, Pyotr Alexeyevich von Hahn, served as a captain in the Russian Royal Horse Artillery. As a result of his military career, Helena’s family frequently moved to different parts of the Russian empire—a mobile childhood that may partly explain her nomadic lifestyle in later life.

Helena discovered the private library of her maternal great-grandfather, Prince Pavel Vasilievich Dolgorukov, which contained a variety of books on occult subjects. Prince Dolgorukov had been initiated into Freemasonry in the late 1770s and also practiced the Rosicrucian Rite of Strict Observance as an initiate. Blavatsky said she experienced visions during which she encountered a “mysterious Indian” man, which many of her biographers believed was the first appearance of the supernormal Masters in her life.

At age seventeen, Helena agreed to marry Nikifor Vladimirovich Blavatsky, a government official in his forties. Her reasons for doing so remaining unclear to this day, although she later explained she was attracted to him by his belief in magic. It was, however, an unsuccessful choice. She tried to withdraw from these arrangements shortly before the wedding ceremony, and soon afterwards attempted to escape her postnuptial bonds (Meade, 55). Eventually succeeding, Blavatsky finally returned home, and soon after left to begin a series of moves to and fro across the world.

Unfortunately, Blavatsky did not keep a diary at all times, nor was she accompanied by anyone who could corroborate her activities. Hence detailed knowledge about a great many of these travels rests upon unverified accounts, which are themselves occasionally marred by conflicting chronologies.

Blavatsky went on to develop friendships with occult figures such as the Coptic magician Paulos Metamon and mesmerists such as Victor Michal. She claimed to have met her “mysterious Indian,” a Hindu whom she referred to as the Master Morya, in England, but she provided conflicting accounts of how they were introduced, while insisting that he had a special mission for her on a subsequently global scale.

Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy has at least two meanings. Etymologically, it means right doctrine, implying something accepted as true by a portion of humankind during a certain period of history. In a secondary sense, it refers to the Eastern Christian Church as it developed from the fourth century AD onward.

Blavatsky’s emotional ties to Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church have been largely overlooked by her biographers. Nevertheless, they are evidenced in several of her early letters and might help explain her passionate disdain for the Roman Catholic church.

In an early letter, dated December 26, 1872, addressed to the Russian secret service, Blavatsky offered to serve her motherland, implying an offer to volunteer as a spy for the Russian state on the papacy by using regular as well as paranormal means. Blavatsky says she has an “inborn hatred of the whole Catholic clergy” (Algeo, 26), adding that she is prepared to devote her remaining life to Russian interests.

Some doubts exist about the authenticity of this letter, even though HPB expresses the same sentiments in a letter to her sister, Vera de Zhelihovsky, dating from February 1877, where she writes that “the Orthodox faith of my Russian brethren [is] sacred to me! . . . I will always defend that faith and Russia, and shall challenge the attacks of the hypocritical Catholics against them, as long as my hand can hold a pen, without fear of either the threats of their Pope or the wrath of the Roman Church—la Grande Bête de l’Apocalypse” (“the Great Beast of Revelation”; Algeo, 289).

While writing Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky was anxious to make sure that its extensive critique of Christianity would not be understood amiss by her favorite aunt, Nadyezhda de Fadeyev. In a letter dated July 19, 1877, Blavatsky wrote to her, “Understand me; our own Orthodox Faith stands by itself. The book does not mention it. I have refused point blank to analyze it, as I wish to preserve at least one small corner of my heart where suspicion could not crawl in a feeling put down with all my strength . . . The Master himself admits this and says that the only people in the world whose faith is not a speculation, are the Orthodox people” (Algeo, 315–16).

Moreover, in a letter to Mme. de Fadeyev, dated October 28–29, 1877 (shortly after the publication of Isis Unveiled), Blavatsky wrote, “Of course you will not find one word therein against the Orthodox Church. Why? Your Church is the purest and the truest, and all the ugly human things, as well as all the little ‘enemies’ . . . will not suffice to desecrate it. In the Russian Orthodox Church alone is Divine Truth established, firmly established.” She adds, however, that this truth “is buried in the foundations; it cannot be found on the surface” (Algeo, 343).

Strong sentiments such as these color Blavatsky’s ensuing attitudes and subconscious convictions. Her early letters are important for a better understanding of her critique of Christianity as well as indicating enduring perspectives that shine throughout her writings. One cannot exclude the possibility that her critique of Christian dogmatism might have been motivated by spiritual idealism or the search for true religious meaning in a time of doctrinal crisis.

Concluding Comments

Do we really understand Blavatsky? After all, some of her writings bear the hallmarks of a confessional novelist more than of a metaphysician or occult historian. Furthermore, Blavatsky’s discourse against Christian dogmatism was influenced by Enlightenment critiques and the zeitgeist of her period, which is why she partly adopted secular thought. Her quest led to a further critique of Christian dogmatism, because she felt Christianity was ill-equipped in its battle against secular materialism.

HPB’s discourse against Christian dogmatism and the Roman Catholic church was partly motivated by her Russian birth and emotional ties with the Russian Orthodox church. This complicates the belief that Blavatsky was anti-Christian, even though she felt the need to challenge everything that stood in the way of her search for religious truth.

All, however, are agreed that humanity is moving towards some great end, some consummation of that hope which animates each individual. This hope expresses itself in many ways but principally takes the form of what is ordinarily known as religion, which in Christian terms is a living relationship with Christ Jesus himself as the ultimate integrative principle.

Sources

All italics in quoted material are from the original.

Algeo, John et al., ed. H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings: The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, Volume 1: 1861–79. Wheaton: Quest, 2003.

Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. Two volumes. Edited by Boris de Zirkoff. Wheaton: Quest 1993.

Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Meade, Marion. Madame Blavatsky: The Woman behind the Myth. New York: Putnam, 1980.

Dr. David William Parry is an international speaker and author of Caliban’s Redemption, The Grammar of Witchcraft, and Mount Athos inside Me: Essays on Religion, Swedenborg, and Arts. He is currently pastor of Valentine’s Hall, an independent Quagan chapel in Balham, South London. David can be reached via his website: www.davidwilliamparry.com​​. This article is an edited version of a virtual lecture delivered to the European School of Theosophy, May 23, 2021.