A Few Reasons to
Be Confident About the Future
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
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The following text reproduces Chapter
Five of the book
“The
Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”,
by Carlos
Cardoso Aveline, The Aquarian
Theosophist, Portugal, 255 pp., 2013.
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“... All efforts of the greatest craft are
doomed to failure on the day they are discovered.”
(Helena P.
Blavatsky)
One can see three
main periods in the history of modern theosophical movement, of which the third
is still waiting to be awakened into proper action.
The first
period took place between 1875 and 1891. During it, the seeds of future
universal brotherhood were planted in the good soil of an ailing civilization.
That initial moment was blessed with the direct assistance given by a number of
high Initiates from around the world - some of them living in mountains and
caves of the Himalayas, others linked to the Greek-Egyptian traditions or to
ancient schools of esoteric wisdom in South and North America.
The second
period is probationary. It brought about the “dying” of the planted seeds
during the silent and invisible process of germination. It corresponds to the
difficult period during which the weeds of pseudo-theosophy and jesuitic
ritualism dominated most of the theosophical
topsoil. It is not over yet.
The third
phase corresponds to the healthy growth of the seedlings of universal
brotherhood in direct contact with the sunlight, and it can fully develop only after the uprooting from the
theosophical ground of the top-down priestly structures based on blind
belief.
In the first part of the 21st century, the movement
seems to be somewhere in the transition
between phase two and phase three. An understanding of theosophical philosophy is enough for
the student to see that he can rely on the success of the present transition.
Adepts have a long-term view of life. They give time
for seedlings to evolve at their own rhythm. The theosophical effort was
inaugurated under the direct supervision of someone “to whose insight the
future lies like an open page”. There is no reason to doubt that the third
period of the movement’s evolution was already safely contained in the two
previous phases of its history.
During the first
period of the theosophical endeavour, HPB and her colleagues directly
confronted and denounced the mechanisms of human organized ignorance. As we know, to each action corresponds a
variety of reactions. It was but logical that in the second period of history Law of Karma should operate according to
Nature. The inner vitality of the theosophical movement had to be then at a low ebb.
As a result, the inevitable probation started, and those challenged
structures of collective ignorance did “invade and control” most of the
movement, bringing into it a progeny of false initiates, jesuitic rituals,
personal ambitions and blind belief.
After thesis
and anti-thesis, a synthesis must
finally come out.
As a consequence of the two initial steps, the
autonomous seedlings must emerge as a new tidal wave from the inner world so as
to win the day at the right time and pace. It is not difficult to see that the entrance hall leading to the third phase of history includes an active work for mankind, a thorough
study of real theosophy, and the fraternal confrontation and defeat of
pseudo-theosophy. Yet before we investigate how best to liberate the movement
from the now lifeless shells of jesuitical structures, one might start by
examining what we really mean by the word “jesuitic”.
The classical global
project of the Jesuits was described by H.P. Blavatsky in a January 1887
letter marked with the words “private and confidential”.
Addressed to Alfred Sinnett, the letter says:
“It would be well perhaps, if the Jesuits contented
themselves with making dupes of Freemasons and opposing the Theosophists and
Occultists using for it the Protestant clergy as ‘cat’s paw’. But their
plottings have a much wider scope, and embrace a minuteness of detail and care
of which the world in general has no idea. Everything is done by them to bring
the mass of mankind again to the state of passive ignorance which they well
know is the only one which can help them to the consummation of their purpose
of Universal Despotism.” [1]
The Company
or Society of Jesus was founded
around the year 1541 as part of the Counter-Reformation, an authoritarian
reaction from the Vatican against the challenging birth of Lutheranism some
twenty years earlier. Jesuitism was created as a secret society with several
degrees - and as a secret service. It gave itself a license to kill and to lie
as it pleased, for the sake of the popes’ centralizing policy of ecclesiastical
power. Since the mid-1500s, whenever and wherever they can, Jesuits have misled
movements and countries through the domination of their highest leaders.
Historians tell us that in the second half of 16th
century they were already conspiring to overthrow Elizabeth I in England and to
deceive or control the Lutheran king John in Sweden, while promoting similar
actions in other countries. The goal was to undermine both national governments
and Protestantism and to replace them by the pope’s black militia, id est,
themselves, in their quest for a global theocratic dictatorship, or empire.
After a couple of centuries, their killings and
conspiracies got out of control. In the second half of 18th century their order
had to be closed. Portugal prohibited their activities in 1759, after Jesuits
promoted the assassination of the Portuguese king. France expelled them in
1764, Spain in 1767, and the Vatican itself officially closed down the Society
of Jesus in 1773. The Jesuits secretly resisted underground, and in 1814 they were able to surface again, being
restored by the Pope. By then the Vatican was in bad need of the black militia and its brutal
methods.
It was only after the Second World War that the Opus Dei - a jesuitic-styled secret
society founded by Spanish fascists during the first half of the 20th century -
seems to have taken over in a great extent the secret role traditionally played
by the Jesuitic black militia.
In the 19th century, protestant England gave a
remarkable example of high-level Jesuitic conspiracies. In a March 1886 letter,
H.P. Blavatsky warned Alfred Sinnett that the British prime-minister, William
Ewart Gladstone, was a secret convert
to the Roman Church. [2] In another
letter, HPB added that Mr. Gladstone was actively working with the Jesuits in
politics. He had been “privately” received by the Pope himself. HPB then
foretold the end of the British Empire as it existed:
“Old England is dying and her moments are
counted.”
HPB explained:
“In former times, at least, no country has better and
more successfully withstood the encroachments and treacherous designs of Popery
than England. Consequently, there is no country the Jesuits would so much like
to dismember and destroy. (...) They have openly avowed they will put an end,
at any rate, a stop to the wheels of the English political machine by making
converts of her chief men.” [3]
At this point, we must turn our focus away from the
macrocosm of Jesuitic action and into the microcosm of the theosophical
movement, and ask ourselves:
“Does the general principle of the Vatican-Jesuitical
action - infiltrating everywhere through top leaders - apply to the
theosophical movement as well? In such a case, would Jesuits like to see the
main leaders of a theosophical society acting under the inspiration of their
own methods and piously cheating the public in the name of
sacred Masters?”
The answer to both questions can only be yes.
Rarely had a movement so clearly challenged the
designs of Popery and Jesuitism, and this made the Theosophical Society highly
eligible for Jesuitic infiltration. HPB acknowledged:
“There never was an Occult Society, however open and
sincere, that has not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by
every secret means.” [4]
She had reasons to say that. The events leading to the
second phase of the movement - the
phase of pseudo-theosophy and Jesuitism - actually started early in the last cycle of seven years in HPB’s life
(1884-1891).
In the mid-1880s, the Coulombs conspiracy and the attacks
coming from Vsevolod Soloviov were but the first attempts to infiltrate the
movement. From the Jesuitic viewpoint, those attacks were not only valid in
themselves. They were also preparatory
for other and more subtle actions in the future.
During the 1880s, the failure of H.S. Olcott to defend
the essence of the movement and the work of its main founder was premonitory.
HPB’s open letter “Why I Do Not Return to India” gives
the details about that. HPB had then to be especially fierce in defending truth
from sophistry among theosophists,
for the movement was under a subtle but intense pressure coming from several
layers of collective ignorance. In many of her articles in her last years, she
also seemed to be consciously planting seed-ideas for the use of future
generations in battles to come. She taught, for instance, why truth-seekers
must reject the naive delusion according to which “brothers should never
criticize one another”. There is something profoundly false, according to her,
in the tactics of “not criticizing in order not to get criticized”; for
mistakes will never be corrected, unless honest criticism is allowed to
identify them.
HPB wrote:
“Theosophists (...) are constantly warned, by the
prudent and the faint-hearted, to beware of giving offence to ‘authorities’,
whether scientific or social. Public Opinion, they urge, is the most dangerous
of all foes. Criticism of it is fatal, we are told. Criticism can hardly hope
to make the person or subject so discussed amend or become amended. Yet it
gives offence to the many, and makes Theosophists hateful. ‘Judge not, if thou
wilt not be judged’, is the habitual warning. It is precisely because
Theosophists would themselves be judged and court impartial criticism, that
they begin by rendering that service to their fellow-men. Mutual criticism is a
most healthy policy, and helps to establish final and definite rules in life -
practical, not merely theoretical.”
And she added a few lines later:
“Criticism is the sole salvation from intellectual
stagnation. It is the beneficent goad which stimulates to life and action -
hence to healthy changes - the heavy ruminants called Routine and Prejudice, in
private as in social life.” [5]
Of course honesty is not always the quickest way to
make many friends. HPB had to admit:
“Sincerity is true wisdom, it appears, only to the
mind of the moral philosopher. It is rudeness and insult to him who regards
dissimulation and deceit as culture and politeness, and holds that the
shortest, easiest, and safest way to success is to let sleeping dogs and old
customs alone. But, if the dogs are obstructing the highway to progress and
truth, and Society will, as a rule, reject the wise words of (St.) Augustine,
who recommends that ‘no man should prefer custom before reason and truth,’ is
it sufficient cause for the philanthropist to walk out of, or even deviate
from, the track of truth, because the selfish egoist chooses to do so?” [6]
Pseudo-theosophists must be honestly confronted, lest
theosophy and the substance of universal brotherhood should abandon the
movement, as she wrote in an article published in 1889:
“If the ‘false prophets of Theosophy’ are to be left
untouched, the true prophets will be
very soon - as they have already been - confused with the false. It is nigh
time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The T.S. is becoming enormous
in its numbers, and if the false
prophets, the pretenders (...), or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone,
then the Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into
three hundred sects - like Protestantism - each hating the other...” [7]
The “false prophets” did win the day some time after
H.P.B. died - thus ushering the movement into the probationary period of its
history. During it, many seeds are already dead, while their successful
seedlings are yet not visible. Robert Crosbie, who in 1909 founded the United
Lodge of Theosophists, saw a similarity in the strategies with which Jesuitism
succeeded in infiltrating Masonry and the Adyar Society. Personalism is an important part of their method; and a “sweet,
well-meaning falsehood” is another one. In a letter to a friend, Crosbie
discussed a certain text published by the Adyar Society:
“I was looking over the magazine article you
mentioned. It is interesting, instructive in places, intelligent and
bountifully interspersed with diagrams. It gives the impression of great
learning on the subject. But it speaks here and there of the Logos and His care of His children. Too much of the personal God under another name, thus
leaving ‘His’ poor, ignorant, sinful children none the wiser as to their
godlike nature! The article made me think of the way the Jesuits side-tracked
Masonry. They entered it, obtained its secrets, invented ‘higher degrees’ to draw
attention from what lay hidden in the original ones, and gradually made it
innocuous, and incapable of leading to the knowledge that they feared.”
Crosbie was right. The ideas and practices of
Jesuitism infiltrated the theosophical movement much in the same way. Besides
trans-forming the Adyar Society and its Esoteric School into an Esoteric
Popery, Adyar leaders also created new
organizations, with their own versions of Masonry
and the Catholic Church. They made
spectacular announcements of every kind. All these “new things” were but
psychological fireworks used to draw the attention of students away from the
theosophical teachings.
Robert Crosbie said in the same text:
“Much that is going on and has gone on in the ....
society has the appearance of leading into innocuous desuetude. This is the
mode of working of Brahmano-Jesuitical forces, and the ordinary thinker is
unable either to perceive, or credit it if warned. It is not believed that
there are Dark Forces and their agents in the world, and that they war within
that which they would destroy; that they dress themselves up in ‘sheep’s
clothing’ so as to be unsuspected. But it is too true. Every failure to
establish the Wisdom-Religion is to be traced to the work of the Dark ones
among the unsuspecting stupid ‘sheep’, who are appealed to through their
weakness and led astray. There is no panacea for stupidity and ignorance but
self-knowledge, discrimination; anything that leads away from them leads to desolation. Would that
there might be some way by which eyes could be opened to a wise and proper
consideration of all things. Yet, if one should publicly point out these
things, ‘untheosophical’ would be the least charge laid at his door. All that
we can do is to accentuate the difference between the Eye Doctrine and the
Doctrine of the Heart with full exemplification.” [8]
In order to understand the prudence shown in the above
passage, one must remember that Robert Crosbie wrote these words between 1909
and 1919, when the work for real theosophy within the movement had to face
tremendous obstacles: it was the hey-day of pseudo-theosophy. But his words
above have been public since 1934.
Why has the progress of the real movement been so slow
during the second period of its history? “Jesuitism” - or the “active side of
spiritual ignorance” - is subtle and rather difficult to identify. It is not a
personality, an individual or a society. It is a set of vibrational patterns
often unconscious, which live around habits and procedures based on personalities
and personal interest. No individual and no section of the movement is ever
entirely safe from it, and as a consequence of this the practice of individual
and collective self-examination is highly commendable. “Where have we
succeeded? Where have we failed? How can we do better next time?” These ancient
Pythagorean questions are always useful.
The occult situation rightly described by Robert
Crosbie had been somewhat foreseen by HPB, who, like Crosbie, left writings and
conceptual instruments to help future generations solve the problem. She not
only wrote that the Jesuitic hand had
been felt in every occult society,
since the foundation of Jesuitism. She also added in the same text a central
idea for the theosophical work to inaugurate its third phase during the 21st century: “But all efforts of the
greatest craft are doomed to failure on the day they are discovered.” [9]
From this single and self-evident statement, one can
get at least to one clear and practical conclusion. In the long run, it does not
matter too much if the greater part of the theosophical movement has been
infiltrated and dominated by false teachings and ritualisms. It also does not
matter if some of its leaders have adopted Jesuitic aims and methods. All
that the real theosophists have to do is to identify and reveal this whole
mayavic process as clearly as possible. And this is slowly taking place
already. Every day the true teachings of Theosophy are adopted by a growing
number of students worldwide. No outer structure can be eternal, and
pseudo-theosophical mechanisms now seem to have but the routine life of empty shells. The real theosophical movement
is independent from any of its visible structures, and its future is as bright
as the future of mankind. Once spiritual discernment is used to destroy the old
cognitive delusions, the jesuitic trap built during the Besant period will be
fraternally demolished.
It was certainly to the living theosophical movement and not to any outer corporation that a
Mahatma wanted to refer, as he wrote, in his well-known report on the views
expressed by his “chief”, the Chohan:
“The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner
stone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity.” [10]
There is also another, less famous report on the Chohan’s
views about the movement, and in it the Masters say:
“We can direct and guide (...) the movement, in
general. Tho’ separated from your world of action we are not yet entirely
severed from it so long as the Theosophical Society exists.” [11]
Theosophists have never been “abandoned”. They were
but given time, so that their seedlings
of universal brotherhood could make a certain degree of progress by their own merit. As a result, it will
be possible for the movement to grow in independence and better fulfill its
role in human evolution.
As to the brightness of the movement’s future, one
should also not forget this prophecy made by HPB:
“…Whether by phenomenon or miracle, by spirit-hook or
bishop’s crook, Occultism must win the day (…) before the end of the
twenty-first century ‘A.D.’.” [12]
Hence, the victory of real theosophy and universal
brotherhood must happen at some time between the present moment and 2099,
probably in a gradual way.
Each theosophist is part and parcel of the process leading
to the next phase in history. Every
honest Adyar member and each student belonging to any group or to none, can
always adopt as his own motto the guiding principle that There is nothing higher than Truth, and thus make an effort to get
his soul in line with the spirit of
the authentic teachings.
What about humanity as a whole?
We might adapt the famous sentence with which HPB
closes her book The Key to Theosophy
and re-phrase it thus, including the word “when”, instead of “if”:
“When in the twentieth-first century the theosophical
movement lives true to its mission, to its original impulses - earth will be a
heaven, in comparison with what it is now.”
But the mystery of Maya,
or Illusion, must be examined and at least partially understood, for the
movement to correctly fulfill its mission. [13]
NOTES:
[1] “The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”,
T.U.P., Pasadena, CA, 1973, 404 pp., see Letter CVI, p. 230. The same passage
appears in almost the same words at another context in “Collected Writings of
H.P. Blavatsky”, TPH, USA, volume XIV, 1985, 734 pp., see p. 266.
[2] See this letter from HPB at the Appendix to “Mahatma
Letters to A.P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena, CA, Letter CXLI, p. 482.
[3] “The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”,
T.U.P., Letter CVI, p. 231.
[4] “Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky”, TPH, USA, vol.
XIV, 1985, 734 pp., see p. 267.
[5] See
the text “Literary Jottings on Criticism, Authorities and Other
Matters”, in “Theosophical Articles”, H.P.B., Theosophy Co., vol. II, pp. 389
and 390.
[6] “To The Readers of Lucifer”, in “Theosophical
Articles”, H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., vol. I, p. 279. It must be noted that
the word “Lucifer” means “light-bearer” and refers to the planet Venus, “the
star that brings the new day”. This ancient term has been distorted by
misinformed Christians.
[7] “On Pseudo-Theosophy”, in “Theosophical Articles”,
Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., vol. I, p. 163.
[8] “The Friendly Philosopher”, Robert Crosbie, Theosophy
Co., Los Angeles, 416 pp., 1945, pp.
161-162.
[9] “Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky”, TPH, USA, vol.
XIV, 1985, 734 pp., see p. 267.
[10] See “View of the
Chohan on the T.S.”, in
“Combined Chronology for Use With The
Mahatma Letters and The Letters of HPB to A.P. Sinnett ”, T.U.P., Pasadena, 48 pp., 1973,
see p. 44. Another version of the same text, almost identical, can be found in
“Theosophical Articles and Notes”, Theosophy Co., 314 pp., 1985, at pp.
189-193.
[11] “The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett”, T.U.P.,
Pasadena, CA, see Letter LXXVIII, page 378. Letter 99 in the Chronological
Edition, TPH, Philippines.
[12] “Collected Writings of H.P.B.”, TPH, USA, volume XIV,
p. 27.
[13] An initial version of the above Chapter
was published as an article at “Fohat” magazine,
Canada, vol. XII, Number 1, Spring 2008, pp. 6-9 and 23.
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See here the 1m30s video “The Healing Chain Reaction”, with a
fragment from “The Fire and Light”:
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