Quest Magazine

Printed in the Spring 2026  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Mitchell, Peter "An Ecology of Conditions: Meeting beyond Fixed Boundaries"   Quest 114:2, pg 33-35

By Peter Mitchell

The grace that is being given at this time is not interested in personal development. It is not concerned with individual well-being. Its purpose is to open up the energy channels that exist within our collective psyche and collective consciousness and help the heart of the world awaken. We have become so focussed on ourselves we have forgotten what has always been true, that the world itself has a higher nature, and that we are part of this greater reality.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Most of us begin to walk the spiritual path fueled by a fire and a passion that emerge from a deep, unsatisfied personal longing—a heartache to fill a perceived gap that feels painfully empty. For all the ways we seem connected globally, more people than ever feel isolated and alone, stuck inside the prison of their own minds, seemingly trapped with their chaotic thoughts and emotions.

A glimpse of another possibility is often all it takes to ignite the spark that begins the search for our true home—which turns out to be nothing other than our deepest self, our boundless center within. Every path is unique, but along the way there are usually teachers and teachings—often contradictory and frequently demanding allegiance—and it is easy to slip into the mental framework of “I haven’t got it, and I need someone else to give it to me.” One can wander through this maze for a lifetime, never fulfilling the promise that is always available.

It takes an independent willingness to stand in one’s own experience and face the momentum of the human condition—a momentum that seems to railroad over whatever “progress” we make. The life force—eros, deep wisdom, however we choose to name it—finds its own way to express itself through us, even when we resist. For our passion to awaken is the life force itself breaking through our personal shells and drawing us into its flow.

For many, including me, the spiritual impulse has been a solo journey—a deepening of insight, a loosening of personal identity, a realization of the immediacy of awareness as self. But over time I began to see that the most transformative experience occurs in relationship: not in solitude but in connection. And I find that I am not alone in this.

As we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century, an emergence is erupting in many places—one that is much needed as our civilization teeters on the brink, in the grip of what some have termed the metacrisis. Small groups of independent, curious people who have tasted and, in some cases, realized their true unlimited nature are drawn together by a need to belong to something greater than themselves. They are beginning to meet, often digitally, through connections that span the globe. They are discovering a transformative potential that arises in the betweenspace that supports their interactions.

I have been part of one such group for the last three years and have recently written a book (The Space between Us) telling the story and discoveries of the group from the inside: not a narrative about the space between us, but one from within it. I have witnessed participants enter this living, vital, awake field of commonality, bringing “problems” that once seemed to block their self-recognition—only to find those blocks often melt away as they are met within the deeper wisdom of the shared alchemical field. They discover an ease of being that invites them into its embrace, where the tension of “holding it all together” is no longer a valid response. Something more open, more vulnerable, more trusting, and more authentic is called for—and often discovered.

We have witnessed people transform in real time, finding the confidence to stand in what they have realized through years of practice. And it is not only individuals who change. Over the three years of our unfolding together, the transformation has deepened beyond our familiar sense of personal self into that realm where we are not—and never have been—separate. There is a wholeness and sense of belonging that transcend our personal definitions, naturally expanding to include others in the group, and beyond even that. We have recognized this as awakening together.

We have come to understand some of the elements that seem to catalyze this transformative potential. That is not to say we have found a mechanism or a technique—we are not trying to flatten the mystery into a strategy. But we have noticed there are certain qualities that facilitate its emergence—what we have come to call an ecology of conditions. This essay explores how these key elements weave together.

Over time, we have observed that the field of shared presence doesn’t emerge through effort or intention alone. In our first meeting—four friends connecting for the simple joy of being together—the field we discovered was an unexpected and very welcome fifth guest at the table. It has been carried forward as the group has unfolded and expanded (though perhaps it is the field that has carried us all along). The field flowers when certain relational qualities are alive within and between us: not techniques to be applied, but organic conditions, each one supporting the others in a living ecology.

At the root of this ecology is authenticity—the willingness to show up as we are, where we are, and at whatever level of capacity we have discovered within ourselves. When the subtle tension of self-presentation relaxes—when we stop trying to appear wise, spiritual, or composed—something genuine begins to move. Dropping fully into the texture of who we are as we are, we become real to ourselves, and in that realness, there is no barrier to meeting others. The energy once bound in self-protection becomes available for attunement and connection. Authenticity is a doorway: a return to what is already here.

From this doorway grows sovereignty—the grounded confidence that allows each of us to stand in our own center without collapsing into the collective. Founded in real integrity, true sovereignty is not the isolation of the separate self but the capacity to remain rooted while in relationship. When each person stands in their own inner authority, the field gains clarity; intimacy deepens and comes alive. We are no longer seeking approval or belonging through agreement; we can meet one another as whole beings.

Vulnerability then becomes possible. To risk being seen in our uncertainty—to trust our inner experience enough to voice it within the shared space—invites intimacy through our transparency. This willingness to risk prevents gatherings from hardening into safe but stagnant routines. It keeps gatherings alive, inviting trust in ourselves and one another.

Trust is experiential—a felt sense of safety in which our defenses can soften. When trust is present, we relax into a rhythm that is both deeply human and subtly sacred. Risk and trust are two sides of the same coin: each deepens the other.

This invites comfort with not-knowing as the living context for our discussions and explorations. We meet not to prove how much we already know but to discover what wants to reveal itself. In not-knowing, we relinquish the need to fix or define, allowing the field to remain an organism of discovery.

The invisible thread that guides this process is attunement—a quiet orientation toward what is true and a sensitivity to the field itself and each other. When we attune, we are listening more than speaking, sensing more than deciding, receptive to a response that is unknowable until we begin to speak from recognition. Attunement, rooted in an underlying stillness, holds the space with a poised attention we can all feel, catalyzing a subtle coherence.

Coherence is not uniformity but resonance—a shared alignment of attention and sincerity that allows diversity to bring depth and allow a more inclusive perspective to emerge. Coherence is both the outcome and the stabilizing structure of the field. In its presence, insight and healing unfold naturally, without coercion or control.

One of the most transformative aspects of meeting in such an open and trusting space is the gift of peer recognition—the simple, luminous act of seeing and being seen. Recognition is not flattery or praise: it is a mirror that reflects what is real. When someone speaks from truth, the resonance is unmistakable. Such moments reinforce integrity, coherence, and especially confidence.

When someone performs rather than reveals, it is equally apparent from the way the field responds. We sense it as discontinuity, a subtle dis-ease in the relational fabric. The coherence of the field depends on our capacity to meet such moments with honesty and compassion, inviting one another back to vulnerability and the shared ground of authenticity.

All of this depends, to some extent, on the depth of experience of the facilitators, at least in the beginning. Depth here does not refer to knowledge or status but to a cultivated capacity to understand, hold the field steady, and remain present through the discomfort of things going offtrack. Without that maturity, openness can easily become reactivity or contraction. Depth provides the ballast that steadies the collective vessel as we move into unknown waters. It allows these meetings to include those who have not yet stabilized deeply in their own understanding and who may struggle initially to trust the space and be vulnerable. In this sense, the field becomes an alchemical chamber for real transformation.

Supporting this is motivation—the inner flame that draws each person to the work. Some are called by curiosity, others by pain, longing, devotion, or simply the mysterious recognition that they are drawn to participate. Whatever its form, sincerity of motivation anchors the process. When participants understand the depth of their own calling, their commitment to the field becomes steady and trustworthy.

When these qualities weave together, something larger than any one of us begins to move. Over time, as personal agendas dissolve, a recognition dawns of the impersonal dimension. We sense that what moves through the group is not generated by us but arrives through us. Life itself—the same current that animates the world we live in—is awakening through relationship. The impersonal balances the personal; it keeps the field fluid and free of fixed identity.

Out of this deepening recognition grows a profound sense of belonging. Identity begins to expand beyond the personal as we find ourselves woven into a wider web of being—human, more than human, and unseen. This belonging is not something we achieve; it is the realization that we have never been separate from the whole.

Finally, when these qualities align, they ripen into communion—the fruit of the field. Communion is the living experience of “we”: a state in which individuality is retained, yet boundaries are porous and a deep mutuality is felt. It is the natural expression of awakened relatedness, where the ground of consciousness reveals itself as inherently shared.

This ecology is not a set of rules but an inner orientation that notices resistance and is willing to move past it. Each quality nourishes the others, and all are held within a greater mystery that cannot be managed or owned. The field teaches us, again and again, that we seek not a future achievement but a present reality—revealed in the simple, courageous act of meeting beyond fixed boundaries.

We are living in a time when the old containers—religious, political, psychological, economic, spiritual—are straining under the weight of complexity, rarely flexible enough to respond to the urgency and rapidity of change. In our hyperconnected age, information travels around the world faster than we can draw a breath, and falsehoods often travel swifter than truth.

The crises of our age are not only ecological and social; they are crises of relatedness—of remembering who and what we are in the vast unfolding of life. The field of awakening that reveals itself between us is not an escape from the world’s pain but a way of meeting it with new eyes. It is eros sprouting up through the cracks, not confronting the old but bringing the new into existence.

Each time we gather in sincerity and openness, we participate in a quiet revolution of perception. We begin to realize that consciousness is not a private possession but a shared medium, a luminous atmosphere in which we are all breathing. This shift—from isolation to participation, from seeking to belonging—may seem subtle, yet its implications are immense. It changes the quality of how we listen, how we act, and how we care. As psychologist Ilya Prigogine observed: “When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.”

The ecology of conditions described here is one expression of a larger movement—a collective quickening that is happening across the world in many different forms. It is as if life itself is experimenting with new ways of knowing and being through us. Whether we name it the evolution of consciousness, the awakening of the world soul, or simply the return to what is real, it carries the same fragrance: humility, courage, and a deep reverence for the mystery that lives between us.

As our civilization trembles on its uncertain threshold, such spaces of genuine meeting are not an indulgence: they are essential. They remind us that wholeness has never been lost, only overlooked; that healing arises not from mastery but from presence; and that the future we long for is born in the quality of attention we offer one another now.

To meet beyond fixed boundaries is to participate in the renewal of the world. It is to stand, together, in the open field where the human and the divine recognize themselves as one life, endlessly unfolding.

Peter Mitchell is a contemplative writer whose work explores the dynamic threshold between the unlimited and its expression in manifestation. He is particularly interested in the living edge between individuality and shared awakening. His book The Space between Us: Awakening Together in a Fractured World invites a new understanding of spiritual maturity as interrelational. He cofacilitates Presence Groups and shares his reflections at petermitchell.life. Starting in January 2026, Peter has been cofacilitating Presence Groups with Anne Sweet (Everyday Enlightened Living and the End of Seeking). To find out more, you can join their mailing list: https://www.between-us-groups.com/join-us

Printed in the Spring 2026  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sorkhabi, Rasoul "Benjamin Franklin’s Experiment with Virtues"   Quest 114:2, pg 30-32

By Rasoul Sorkhabi

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the United States of America; it also marks the 320th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth.

Franklin holds a unique position among the founding fathers of the United States. He was the oldest of all and did not run for presidency; he was the first American scientist and inventor; and he was the only founding father who signed all four documents that founded the United States, from the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the alliance with France, the peace treaty with Britain, and the 1787 Constitution.

Franklin was also a self-made man, financially, intellectually, and spiritually. He was born into a poor family, and at age seventeen fled his hometown of Boston to Philadelphia, where he acquired enormous wealth and fame. He did not attend any college, but he was self-taught and a voracious reader. by the time of his old age, his home library contained more than 4,000 books, shelved from floor to ceiling.

Spiritually too, Franklin was a self-made person in the sense that he did not blindly follow any denomination or tradition, even though he was open to religions operating in his environment, from Quakerism to Freemasonry. As a young boy, Franklin compiled his theosophical principles and prayers in a little book he called Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion. He embraced Deism: the belief in One God as creator of the universe and its laws, which made creation logical and amenable to science and reason. He respected the social rights and moral teachings of all religions, but he seldom attended Sunday rituals, mainly because he found the sermons to be more about how to be a good denominational person than a good citizen.

Franklin’s most systematic effort, as he phrased it in the Autobiography, “the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection,” was his experiment with a set of self-assigned virtues. I use the word “experiment” because that is how Franklin conducted his works, ranging from his printing business and scientific experiments with lightning to helping to found the American republic.

Around 1728, in his early twenties in Philadelphia, while running a print shop business and leading a study group called the Leather Apron Club (or Junta), Franklin began his project on “moral perfection.” He selected twelve virtues for his practice, as listed in his Autobiography:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation.

2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., waste nothing.

6. Industry. Lose no time: be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation. Avoid extreams [sic]; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.

Franklin came up with this list of virtues after “various Enumerations of the moral Virtues I had met with in my Reading.” He had most likely read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in which the great Greek philosopher defines humans as rational, social animals who can achieve eudaimonia, happiness or human flourishing, by cultivating certain virtues, particularly courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, ambition, patience (good temper), truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, and righteousness (justice). For Aristotle, a virtue was a quality balanced between deficiency and excess. For instance, courage, when lacking, is cowardice; in excess, it is recklessness.

When Franklin showed his list to a Quaker friend, the friend commented that Franklin had forgotten one important virtue: humility. The friend, “mentioning several Instances,” told Franklin that he “was generally proud.” Therefore, Franklin, perhaps as his first practice of humility, agreed with his friend and added the following to his list of virtues:

13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Next, Franklin prepared a little booklet to record his progress on his “Execution of the Plan for Self-Examination.” On each page of the booklet, he made a chart with columns for the seven days of the week and rows for the thirteen virtues. His goal was “to live without committing any Fault at any time” and to “conquer all that either Natural Inclination, Custom, or Company might lead me into.” To strengthen his practice, he also included relevant aphorisms. For the first virtue, temperance, Franklin quoted from the Proverbs of Solomon: “Length of days is in her right hand: and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3: 16–17).

Franklin devoted one week to each of the virtues. “I was surprised,” he noted, “to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.” Some virtues were harder than others. Silence was relatively “easy,” but order gave him “the most Trouble.” He resolved the issue of order in his own way: He reasoned that he was a busy man and had to mingle with the world and often receive people at their own hours. So it was not possible to observe order exactly to the letter. He also thought that many other busy people would face this challenge, and one can only do one’s best.

As for humility, Franklin confessed: “I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it.” He added: “In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.” In saying this, Franklin had at least mastered the virtue of sincerity.

Franklin apparently treasured his booklet, which he wanted to call “The Art of Virtue,” because it was a “method” to “acquire the Habitude of all these Virtues” and “be Master” of them.

In Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Walter Isaacson writes: “As a young boy, Franklin seemed to approach his moral perfection program with an endearing sincerity, and even as an old man seemed proud of its worthiness.” That is perhaps why, when Franklin wrote his Autobiography in the last three decades of his life, he thought it worthwhile to devote part 2 of the book (written in 1784 in France) to his theosophy and experiments with virtues.

A glance at the list of Franklin’s thirteen virtues shows that it was like a crash course on self-actualization and self-improvement to perform better in life, work, and society. For this reason, during the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century, as Irvin G. Wyllie describes in The Self-Made Man in America, capitalists, bankers, and authors like Horatio Alger, Andrew Carnegie, and Thomas Mellon read Franklin’s Autobiography as self-help advice for a virtuous and successful life. 

Virtues like love, compassion, charity, empathy, and benevolence are absent from Franklin’s list. This does not mean that he lacked these qualities altogether. He was compassionate and benevolent in his own way. For instance, he refused to patent any of his inventions because, as he wrote in his Autobiography, “as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.” And one of his ethical principles, as he noted in his Autobiography, was “the most acceptable service to God is doing good to man.”

Franklin’s experiment shows that he considered it important to cultivate and practice virtue to each person’s capacity and that a virtuous life is also pragmatic—doing well by doing good.

Sources

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003.

Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Wyllie, Irvin. The Self-Made Man in America: The Myth of Rags to Riches. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1954.

Rasoul Sorkhabi, PhD, is a professor at the University of Utah. His life spans both East and West, as he has lived and studied in Iran, India, Japan, and for most of his life in the U.S. This is his seventh contribution to Quest.

Figure captions:

Figure 1. Benjamin Franklin, c. 1785, portrait by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (National Portrait Gallery/Wikipedia Commons).

Figure 2. A page of the schedule from Franklin’s daily and weekly “moral perfection” program.

Printed in the Spring 2026  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Heubel, Peggy "Blavatsky’s New Cycle: A Reflection of Our Modern World"   Quest 114:2, pg 27-29

By Peggy Heubel

This article is based on an article by H.P. Blavatsky, “Le cycle nouveau,” originally published in La revue Théosophique 1, no. 1, March 21, 1889. The English version, “The New Cycle,” can be found in H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings, Volume 11 (1889), 123–36.

As the Theosophical Society celebrates 150 years of service to humanity, the message of its founding remains more urgent than ever. We live in a time marked by polarization, intolerance, and a breakdown of shared meaning. Wars continue to displace millions, economic systems leave vast swaths of humanity behind, and the natural world suffers under the weight of exploitation. At the same time, many people yearn for deeper meaning, a renewed sense of global solidarity, and a spiritual vision that transcends sectarianism. How are we to answer them—we who advocate unity through brotherhood as our raison d’être as a Society?

In this context, the words of H.P. Blavatsky (modernized here) continue to speak with remarkable clarity and power across the decades. Her article “The New Cycle,” first published in 1889, reminds us that Theosophy is not a static body of doctrines but a living impulse that is meant to awaken human consciousness to its divine roots and rekindle the ethical, universal, and spiritual ideals that alone can guide us forward. What follows is a modern rendering of her message, as relevant to our twenty-first century world as it was to the nineteenth.

What Blavatsky called “the new cycle” has arrived and passed through many phases in the meantime. The twentieth century brought remarkable advances—global civil rights movements, international cooperation, and scientific progress—but also two world wars, environmental degradation, and the rise of ideologies that undermine human dignity. Today, like then, we stand at a tipping point. Technology connects us more than ever, yet alienation, disaffection, and mutual hostility continue unabated. Institutions once trusted for wisdom—religious, political, even educational—are viewed with skepticism or indifference. In such times, Theosophy calls us back to first principles as a necessary refocusing of perspective.

As serious students of the Ancient Wisdom, we understand that the principle of universal brotherhood is not merely an ideal: it is the key to survival in a world fractured by nationalism, racism, religious fundamentalism, and economic injustice. When human beings are treated as disposable—through systemic poverty, the refugee crisis, or climate inaction, to name a few—something of our common humanity is lost. Are we backsliding into a dark age of hopeless despair?

Blavatsky warned of terrible strife between blind materialism and a reawakening spiritual impulse. Today that strife is visible and obvious: life itself appears as a commodity, truth is politicized, and a growing disconnect divides technological power from ethical responsibility. Yet she also foresaw a new wave—a spiritual tide—rising from the depths, carrying with it the “forgotten and submerged treasures” of inner wisdom.

Let us, then, celebrate 150 years of Theosophy not merely as a legacy but as a living opportunity. The “new cycle” is not over: it is now and perhaps has even begun a phase that will last for millennia. Shall we meet it with a clear and honest restatement of who we are and what we aim to do? Has the founding impetus survived as strong as ever—or have we lost our ability to respond?

Much misunderstanding still surrounds the Theosophical Society, even among us, its members. Ideas about our identity, our teachings, and our goals vary so widely that it is important to clarify our purpose.

What is Theosophy? Why do we use a term that might still sound lofty or unfamiliar? Theosophy means divine wisdom—a term that refers not to the dogmas of any one religion, but to a timeless spiritual truth, the wisdom of the sages and seers across the ages. It is not the wisdom of a personal God, but of the divine order woven into the intelligence of nature and the cosmos itself.

Just as in 1889, some wonder who we are. Back then, some asked, “Aren’t you Buddhists?” HPB replied, “We are no more Buddhists than we are Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, Zoroastrians or Brahmanists.” Is it necessary to reiterate that, as a Society, we are not bound to any single religion? Religions are valuable vehicles that carry portions of universal truth, but none hold it exclusively. Theosophy, in this sense, is the science of truth—spiritual and philosophical. Shall we shy away from pointing the way to the self-realization of truth as part of our doctrine? We continue to welcome not only serious seekers after spiritual meaning and purpose but those who are merely curious, regardless of their religious background (if any).

The Society does not demand belief in any specific doctrine. We study the world’s spiritual traditions—especially the ancient Eastern ones—because they preserve keys to deep metaphysical insights. But we do not promote one religion over another; we look for the underlying truth in each. In this way, the members of the Society resemble a community of explorers. What matters is the sincerity and courage with which we pursue truth or ultimate reality.

Some have accused the Theosophical Society of all sorts of things over the years—of being miracle workers, atheists, Jesuits, revolutionaries; some even accused Blavatsky of being a Russian spy. At times we’ve been called ignorant fanatics; at others, deceptive schemers. We’ve been denounced by spiritualists and condemned by clergy. In short, we’ve been called both fools and frauds—sometimes in the same breath.

But slander usually reveals more about the slanderer than the slandered. The Society has never hidden its aims. Since its founding in New York in 1875, Theosophy has drawn more and more people from around the world, expanding our work in ways we never expected. The diversity of our membership—people of every race, culture, and belief—has demanded ever deeper study, which ultimately can result in ever deepening self-transformation if pursued in earnest. Our original mission has grown, although it has not changed.

But let us ask ourselves: what is ever-deeper study without selfless service? How does universal brotherhood arise from mere study without compassionate, altruistic service? Of our three official Objects, the one most dear to us—universal brotherhood—has been the hardest to realize. Have we tried our best? This ideal often is overlooked or ignored, especially in places still weighed down by racial or national hubris. Our commitment to studying ancient religions and uncovering the inner powers of the human being continues strong, but it means nothing without practical action.

Our work has evolved in many ways since Blavatsky was writing. General discussions must take a back seat to true inner self-exploration, and we must not only explore our inner nature, but the deeper roots of spiritual traditions as well. We must take to heart the essence of The Secret Doctrine, which, after 150 years, still offers new perspectives not only on spiritual growth and the cosmic history of the world but perspectives that continue to challenge both religious dogma and scientific orthodoxy. Truth demands courage.

Additionally, as Blavatsky urges, let us be clear: the Society promotes no one religion, no one dogma. We certainly know this by now. Freedom of thought reigns! Each member is free to follow their own beliefs. Our guiding motto—“There is no religion higher than Truth”—means exactly what it says. No dogma, no creed, and no personal belief should prevent us from seeking truth wherever it may be found through ongoing courage, fortitude, and commitment.

This is why there is no room in our Society for narrow-minded sectarians or religious bigots—those who build walls of half-truths and forced beliefs, shutting out all who think differently. Theosophy rests on the principle of spiritual freedom: the right (and the duty) to investigate the mysteries of life and consciousness, both in Nature and in ourselves.

Anyone who resonates with this ideal—who feels compassion for others, who seeks wisdom and truth, who wants to help uplift humanity through selfless service—is already in essence a “true Theosophist”; membership does not make us one. We don’t need to abandon our beliefs to join: all that is needed is an open heart, a questing mind, and a sincere desire to serve. Some people worry that our Society includes both materialists and spiritualists, atheists and deists, idealists and pragmatists. But why should that matter? What unites us is not what we believe about God, but how we live, think, and serve one another. Whether we see divinity in a personal God or in the impersonal unity of all life, what matters is the common journey—the ethical and spiritual path walked by sages of every tradition and in all ages.

Blavatsky expected each member to contribute, not necessarily financially (though, when needed, to help the cause) but through some form of effort, study, or service. Ours is a community of seekers and workers—or should be. Since the beginning, presidents and leaders of branches, study centers, and sections have served humbly and worked side by side with members around the world, helping wherever they could. They are asked to ensure that our collective energy is not drained without acting—for action is foundational to our mission.

Has our mission changed? No. Cycles rise, fall, and are renewed; they beckon us, and the time is ripe for change once again. A spiritual tide is rising again not only in the West but throughout the world. The long-forgotten wisdom of ancient times—buried beneath centuries of dogma and materialism—is gathering strength once again. Science itself is increasingly beginning to echo truths long taught by seers and sages.

The currents of this cyclic reiteration bring both opportunity and risk. “Those who can read the signs and prepare will rise; those who resist may be swept away” now as then—150 years ago.

Now as then, this is not a call for conversion or a message for mass humanity. It is a quiet appeal to those who feel the stirrings of the soul. To those who have “tasted the bitterness of empty materialism” and the dangers it brings, the call goes out to seek something deeper. To those who believe in “the good,” there is more to life than profit, pleasure, and personal gain. Let us search for it and, once found, work on behalf of it.

It has been said when a spiritual cycle reasserts itself, the coming years will not be easy. The battle between materialism and spirituality—between rigid dogma and living truth—continues and will intensify. Yet should we despair? A great awakening is always possible, because the soul of humanity is not dead but only rests waiting for acknowledgment.

Theosophy is not a creed, but a path. It is the ancient path, walked by the wise of every age—one that begins in humility and ends in the self-realization of the divine nature within. Its first steps require unselfishness, integrity, and a burning love for truth. It asks for purity of motive, courage of heart, and an unwavering focus on the spiritual goal. Those who walk this path need not hide it. Let conscience, not convention, be our guide. Let our inner life be rooted in the highest ideal we can imagine. And if our feet are muddy from the world, let us not look down but look up and walk on.

For those who are ready, the time is now. Theosophy is not just a teaching: it is a call to live a sacred life when we as individuals are ready. In doing so, we not only transform ourselves, but we help awaken the soul of the world. Let us support our mission as never before. Let us fly the flag of truth incarnate residing in each one of us, and let us lend a helping hand to those who are not yet ready but will be, this day or the next, thanks to our efforts.

Peggy Heubel is a member of the TSA board of directors for the Western District.

Printed in the Spring 2026  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Trull, David "Arete after the Gods: Virtue between Worlds"   Quest 114:2, pg 24-26

By David Trull

I feel the smallest and darkest I have in years. Pungent incense smoke snakes through the crowd. Monotone chant echoes in the heights above, a background hum of coughs, creaks, and baby cries below.

The “mass of the ages,” Christmas Eve, ’24. Midnight.

I grew up Catholic. We spent most of my mass-going years attending standard-issue, Novus Ordo churches. The kind with pancake breakfasts and citizen choirs and handshakes and hugs for the sign of peace. But my family went through a multiyear Latin Mass era, and in her empty-nester years, my mom has returned to it with aplomb. She adores the reverence, the chant, the timeless unchanging rhythm.

I never resonated with it, even in my youth, and left it behind long ago. The further it receded into the past, the more rose-tinted my glasses became.

Until I immersed myself in its presence once again.

I agreed to accompany the family to midnight mass because I love my mom, and she wanted everyone to be together on Christmas. That’s reason enough for me. I went into it with as open a mind as I could muster. It would be midnight deep in the depths of St. Louis, a remnant gathered to chant and pray. I would get something out of it, I was sure.

But as soon as I set foot in that cavernous cathedral and smelled the incense and the century-old stone, I felt a crushing weight descend, as if someone had hooked anvils onto my limbs. My nervous system grew restive, ceaselessly scanning for threats. As the mass plodded forward, I felt a burning desire to shout something profane, to rebel somehow. Or just to bail. Run out the door and never look back.

When it concluded, I was the first out the door. I took eager sips of the frigid 2 a.m. air, savoring the star-speckled open sky instead of the medieval stone.

But the majority of the crowd seemed transported by the whole thing. I felt a grinding unease: why did it crush my spirit while elevating others? Why did I feel hunted merely by setting foot within those walls?

The dissonance struck an especially sour note because I’d recently been on an extended run of growth and expansion. An “upward spiral,” I’ve been calling it.

I’d recently made a resolution to reinvest in “home.” After several years of nomadic living, spurred by the pandemic and the immense blessing of remote work, I’d finally grown weary of rootlessness. Despite the countless rich adventures that crossed my path, I felt a deep yearning to find fertile soil in which to take root.

So I resolved to stay home—not as a consumer, but as a participant in my Santa Barbara community.

One quality I’ve noticed in myself is that when I’m a stranger in a strange land, I have no trouble striking up conversations, saying yes to experience—crafting nourishing relationship ecosystems. I’m a different person.

Once I return “home,” I tend to shrink. Postmodern America has largely lost the art of community—our bonding rituals hover on the brink of extinction. I fell victim instantly. Not that I sat alone in my house. I just found it an immense struggle to know what to do or where to go to feel at home.

But I decided to invest on spec. Although the first steps were a slog, I steadily found my footing.

I knew I needed to jettison my overintellectualizing habits: I’d neglected embodiment for far too long.

So I got to know the baristas at my neighborhood coffee shop. I started playing beach volleyball and found a bright, loving little community built upon sunshine and motion.

I joined a local ecstatic dance circle and learned to express myself through unfiltered movement and music in ways that had felt painfully awkward before.

I began to practice tantra, sensing the presence of subtle energy and the power of human touch, absent society’s strings.

I embarked on numerous medicine journeys, which helped address festering wounds lodged deep in my psyche.

As this upward spiral unfurled, I noticed a shifting physiology. Open arms, firm eye contact, a new sensitivity to my space and surroundings (and an urge to beautify them). I began to think in terms of arete, the Aristotelian notion of excellence: an excellence in fulfilling one’s nature. I see this era in my life as getting better at being human. Balancing emotion, intellect, and body in a harmonious interplay—allowing right action to flow naturally.

I saw myself as a gardener, tending an ecosystem of practices that kept me aligned, flowing, and exuding life energy. Friends and family commented on the difference in my demeanor, and my new relationships became one of mutual opening—seeing and being seen.

This spiral’s ripening fruit crystallized into a new spiritual ethic: a normal human life, lived fully and with integrity, is as good as it gets.

Is virtuous, even. Existential angst (which I have acutely felt at times) has a habit of vanishing in the face of human thriving. Live well, live fully, and the “problem” vanishes. Virtue becomes the deeper meaning. You can feel it in your bones.

This stands in stark contrast to the inherent lack baked into the traditional religion of my youth, with its foundational tenet that humans are fallen, that life is a journey of finding our way back to worthiness, and that even then, we’re insufficient to do so. Our troubled souls cry out for sacred fire to purify them.

Looking back to that midnight mass, I think that’s the dissonance that struck me. The physiology of the ritual (silence, bowed posture, rigid body) was one of passive submission: the sense that authorized parties obtain and dispense virtue in a practice of passive reception. Sit still, stay quiet, let the priests perform the rite, receive the virtue. You don’t attain salvation by living as if you’re saved, but through unmerited grace conjured for you by a higher caste.

Now I feel the seed of salvation lies inborn in us all, ready to bloom in the springtime of action and participation. At the intersection of self-knowledge and a regulated nervous system.

That church was full to the brim that night, however: I have to account for that. Especially in the chaotic 2020s, what drew so many believers to that medieval midnight ritual?

The answer, I think, emerges from two contrasting takes on virtue.

On the one hand: virtue descends from order. In this age of ephemera and dislocation (which I feel acutely myself), the ancient mass offers a refuge, a sturdy shore unbeaten by the great unmaker that is time. The ritual safeguards the soul from chaos by bathing it in order, which resides above, in the pure, divine realm.

From the other viewpoint, virtue blossoms from the soil of internal coherence: A well-tended ecology of practices, shared life, and psychic repair. The habit of granting every inner voice a voice. Rendering life its own, self-evident work of art. Movement, a balanced nervous system. Mutual care in place of competition. Over time, you find there’s no void to fill. You’re enough.

Both paths aim for the same end: coherence.

One path achieves its aim by constraining the self, letting God do the work. There’s definitely wisdom to this. And in the face of the ceaseless sand shifting of postmodern times, its eternal sameness does help defeat time, however briefly. Within this context, the body and mind stand as vessels awaiting grace and awe.

The other path cultivates coherence by integrating the self: by letting it find freedom in the chorus of creation. From the outside, this approach can appear frivolous. After all, I’m putting beach volleyball ahead of millennia-old liturgy—sure looks like late-stage void filling, huh? Distraction to repress angst?

I’ve wrestled with that question, to be sure. But I’ve come to feel that its fruits are self-evident: the ecology of practices—whether it comprises intentional meditation, medicine journeys, or simply saying hello to your neighbors—eventually strikes a chord in the human soul that lets this inner harmony give rise to action. Action that betters existence, both your own and others.

Perhaps virtue, in any age, is our attempt to craft coherence in the face of chaos. We access it by submitting to a constructed spiritual order, or through living life consciously—letting the mind forget itself in immersive action.

During our Latin mass era, some families would drive two or three hours both ways, every Sunday and feast day, for that particular mass. They dreaded its loss, whether from financial collapse (the church’s maintenance costs were stratospheric) or papal decree. Without it, they’d find themselves marooned on an unforgiving shore.

I acknowledge the power of traditional religion, as embodied in forms like the Latin mass, to offer profound peace, clarity, and a refuge from the ravages of time. But its most glaring shortfall, to me, is its gatekeeping. If salvation lies in reception of grace from a properly performed rite, and only the anointed ones can perform that rite, that leaves humanity at the mercy of the availability of that rite.

For me, and perhaps for all of us yearning to flourish in this time between worlds, the path forward lies in trusting inner coherence and cultivating its container. Your interior church, activated by participation in life’s immediacy. Integrating order and chaos (and rehabbing “chaos” from its stature among the virtuous as a dirty word).

That’s the answer furnished by this 2020s Aristotelian ethic that I’ve been steadily stumbling upon. We all get a life to live, whatever its conditions. It’s in the steady quest to actualize ourselves across the dimensions of personhood that virtue and coherence emerge.

Great minds and souls fashioned those ancient systems, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for quelling Bronze Age chaos and ushering in civilization. But human thriving, here and now, calls for boldly stepping into life as it finds you. And I think you’ll find the joy of what I’ve recently begun to taste: a normal life, fully lived, is its own reward.

David Trull has worked as a fireworks salesman, forensic tax researcher, railroad logistician, teacher, songwriter, and musician. He studied philosophy through a Great Books immersion program at Thomas Aquinas College in Ojai, California. A lifelong autodidact, he has advanced his explorations through a self-designed curriculum focused on the intersection of philosophy and theology.