Basil Crump was a great
knowledgeable on Theosophy and Buddhism, and about this book, he wrote the
following:
INTRODUCTORY POSTULATES
These are stated to be “extensions
of the three fundamentals to be found in the Proem in the first volume of The
Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky.” But in reality Mrs. Bailey develops
a whole cosmic scheme of her own, which includes a new set of so-called Stanzas
of Dzyan, a Solar Logos also called “God,” a Triple Solar System consisting of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a Triple Human Being, and a triple Atom. Also
Seven centres of Logoic Force, and Seven Rays which include those of
“Love-Wisdom”, “Harmony, Beauty and Art,” and “Devotion and Abstract Idealism.”
The reader is constantly referred to
passages in the Secret Doctrine, but very few of the terms used, e.g.,
“Love-Wisdom,” “Abstract Idealism,” “Logoic,” etc., etc., will be found there.
My impression is that this is done to mislead the student into thinking that
this work is on H.P. Blavatsky’s lines, whereas even a cursory examination
shows that it is entirely different and is really designed very cleverly to
lead the student away from the real teaching and confuse his mind with an
imposing mass of apparently very learned information which really means little
or nothing and leads nowhere.
The method is somewhat similar to,
but less obvious and more clever than, that of C.W. Leadbeater, but I think
that the power behind is the same, working with the same object
on a different line for a more intellectual type of mind. It is of considerable
significance that Leadbeater and Mrs. Besant are frequently quoted, and their
Christ and World Teacher doctrines taken for granted.
MRS. BAILEY’S TIBETAN TEACHER
With regard to the source of Mrs.
Bailey’s information, it has long been understood that she receives it in a
psychic, telepathic, or inspirational form from a “Tibetan Teacher.” Referring
to Cosmic Fire, a writer in the Canadian Theosophist for
December, 1926, says:
“This material also has been
received from the Tibetan Teacher – not by any automatic process but apparently
in much the same way as The Secret Doctrine was written. . . . It is not
a fanciful or arbitrary revelation, but rather a turning of what H.P. Blavatsky
called the analogical key in the Secret Doctrine lock. The result is startling,
almost as startling as the Secret Doctrine itself.”
He goes on to describe and praise
Mrs. Bailey’s Arcane School, which is evidently intended as a successor to H.P.
Blavatsky’s Esoteric School, with of course Mrs. Bailey as its “Outer Head” or
mouthpiece for the “Tibetan Teacher.” The scheme for what one may call a new
and improved (?) edition of H.P. Blavatsky’s work is therefore complete, and
comment thereon is scarcely necessary. Conclusions may be drawn for the moment
from the following notes:
GOD, THE LOGOS AND THE HIERARCHY
The word “God” is constantly used,
and great stress is laid on the “Love Aspect of the Logos”; but the references
given to the Secret Doctrine contain no such term. This sort of trick is
found throughout the book; for in nearly every instance, on looking it up, the
reference given uses different phraseology or has no application at all.
Thus, on p. 66, Fohat is stated to
be “Love-Wisdom,” and a footnote refers to S.D. I, p. 100, 144, 155, (Besant
Edition), but on looking them up one finds: p. 100 “Blazing Dragon of Wisdom”;
p. 144, “Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros) [“As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony,
differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the
primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros. – S.D. I, p. 109.], the electric Power of affinity and sympathy”; p. 155, no
mention of Fohat, Love, or Wisdom.
Next Mrs. Bailey says Fohat is “God”
and refers to S.D. I, 167, but we there find in a footnote that what she calls
“God” is “absolute Be-Ness, ‘SAT’.” And if we turn to p. 376 (352 Old Edition)
we read: “When the Theosophists and Occultists say that God is no BEING, for IT
is nothing, No-Thing, they are more reverential and religiously
respectful to the Deity than those who call God a HE, and thus make of HIM a
gigantic MALE.”
The question is dealt with at
considerable length by The Master K.H. in Letter X, Mahatma Letters, p.
52, where he says “… we deny God both as philosophers and as Buddhists. We know
there are planetary and other spiritual lives, and we know there is in our
system no such thing as God, either personal or impersonal.”
One may search in vain for Mrs.
Bailey’s “Ray of Love-Wisdom” in the S.D., and the references (p. 74) given to
it concerning the “Love aspect of the Logos” contain nothing of the kind. These
are only a few out of dozens of such examples in the two volumes.
At p. 91 the “Fourth Creative
Hierarchy” is “male”, but surely creative power is male in any case. The word
“Love” is used ad nauseam throughout the work and even the Ego is called
the “Love Aspect” (147).
ASSERTION AND PROPHECY
Confident assertions are made as to what
exactly will take place in future Rounds, e.g. “The Logos of our scheme,
Sanat Kumara, will take a major initiation in the middle of the Fifth Round,
but is preparing for a minor one at this time” (p. 374). According to the S.D.
I, p. 456-7 there are seven Kumaras, who are the Solar angels that endowed man
with his immortal Ego. Sanat Kumara (see Theos. Glossary, p. 289) is the
most prominent of these, and therefore it is misleading to apply the name to
the Logos. See also post p. 34.
Observe particularly that the Bailey
scheme entirely ignores the Buddha Hierarchy emanating from Adi-Budha (S.D.
I, 570) substituting the Solar Logos, the Trinity, and Seven Rays, one of which
(“Love-Wisdom”) includes “The Christ, the World Teacher.” It is obvious
therefore that, like Leadbeater, Mrs. Bailey is really working in the interests
of the Christian system by introducing its terminology and concepts into works
that are ostensibly expositions of the Esoteric Philosophy of the Masters and
H.P.B., but are really cleverly masked Christian propaganda.
For instance, the Seven Dhyani
Buddhas here become Seven Rays, under three of which (those of “Aspect”) are
grouped various Masters, including those mentioned by H.P.B. and several
others. The Christ comes first under the “Love-Wisdom Aspect” and “the Master
Jesus” under the “Intelligence Aspect.” See elaborate Chart of “Solar and
Planetary Hierarchies” with key on pp. 1238-9.
THE MASTER JESUS
Cosmic Fire positively bristles with
pronouncements concerning the “Master Jesus”, e.g. p. 757 et seq.:
“… the coming of Him for whom all
nations wait.”
“The Son of Man will again tread the
highways of man and His physical incarnation will be fact.”
“The Master Jesus will take a
physical vehicle and … effect a re-spiritualization of the Catholic Churches …
about 1980”. (Here we have the sure sign of a certain influence which is also
evident in the Besant-Leadbeater Liberal Catholic Church scheme.)
“Christ occupied the body of Jesus.
… Few are as Christ is, and have the power to make a dual appearance. This type
of monad is only found on Rays two, four, six.”
Compare this with what is said on
the Buddha’s powers in the Mahatma Letters, p. 43, 47. See also p.
344 concerning “the real Christ of every Christian” and “the man Jeshu.”
Neither the Masters nor H.P. Blavatsky ever write of the Christ as an
individual Being, but always as a principle in man.
THE LOGOS IN FACT AND FICTION
The “Logos” is a very Prominent
feature of this book, in various forms, such as “Cosmic,” “Solar,” “Planetary,”
about all of which we are given intimate personal details, as to their
“initiations,” “incarnations,” etc. Nothing of this kind is ever assumed in the
Secret Doctrine.
As most people, outside this branch
of study, do not know what a Logos is, and as Mrs. Bailey prefers assertion to
exposition, I will give H.P. Blavatsky’s definition from her Theosophical
Glossary: “LOGOS (Gr.) – The manifested deity with every
nation and people; the outward expression, or the effect of the cause which is
ever concealed. Thus, speech is the Logos of thought; hence it is aptly
translated by the ‘Verbum’ or ‘Word’ in its metaphysical sense.”
In the Secret Doctrine, I, p.
573 (1st Ed.) we are told that “The Logos is the Iswara of the Hindus
which the Vedantins say is the highest consciousness in nature – ‘the sum total
of Dhyan-Chohanic consciousness’ according to the Occultists.” It will at once
be seen how greatly these differ from Mrs. Bailey’s limited and personal
conception. S.D. I, p. 571-2 should also be studied in this connection.
Needless to say, no such idea as the “Initiation” of a Logos is to be found in
the S.D.
There is an immense amount of this
sort of thing, very much on the Leadbeater lines of pure assertion with implied
authority in the background. How different from H.P. Blavatsky, of whom the
Masters say in the Mahatma Letters, p. 289: “She had to bring the whole
arsenal of proofs with her, quotations from Paul and Plato, from Plutarch and
James, etc., before the Spiritualists admitted that the Theosophists were
right.” Mrs. Bailey scorns such a method – she is content to assert, or her
“Tibetan” is.
Prophecies and bold statements
concerning evolution on the Earth abound in the book: e.g. p. 390: “An
entirely new group of human beings will sweep into incarnation in our Earth
scheme. … Entities will come in from Mars. … Mercurian life will begin to
synthesize,” etc., in regular Leadbeater style. Presumably we are to regard
these as examples of “turning the analogical key in the Secret Doctrine lock,”
although nothing of the sort is to be found in that work.
Notwithstanding the unsparing
condemnation of Spiritualism in the Mahatma Letters, we read at p.
456 (footnote) that “Master Hilarian (sic), a Cretan Master, is interested in
the Spiritualistic movement.” Also that a “Hungarian Master, Rakoczi, is the
Regent of Europe and America under the ‘Great White Brotherhood'” – a term
coined by the Besant-Leadbeater doctrine and never used by H.P. Blavatsky. (See
post, p. 33)
IGNORANCE CONCERNING THE BUDDHA
Considering that these teachings are
supposed to come from a “Tibetan,” a remarkable ignorance is shown about the
Buddha and his real standing in the Occult Hierarchy. For instance, we are
told, at p. 210: “The Buddha held office prior to the present World Teacher and
upon his Illumination His place was taken by Lord Maitreya whom the Occidentals
call Christ” (p. 211, note).
This World Teacher, who is also
called here “the Great Lord, the Christ,” is a specifically Leadbeater
invention; so is the identification of Maitreya (the next Buddha) with the
Christ, the object from the Christian propaganda standpoint being evident. But
the whole scheme is entirely foreign to the Oriental teaching of the Secret
Doctrine.
One has only to turn to the Mahatma
Letters and look up the references to the Buddha to see what a supreme
position is given to him by the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood. I have collected
and commented on these passages under the title “Tibetan Initiates on the
Buddha” in Part III of our new book Buddhism the Science of Life (Peking,
1928), pointing out their significance in connection with present developments
in Asia.
THE PHENOMENON CALLED SEX ACTIVITY
Mrs. Bailey even associates the
Logos with Sex! Thus (p. 721): “The Law of Attraction … deals with the ability
of the Logos to ‘love wisely’ in the occult sense of the term. It has relation
to the polarization of the Logos in His astral body, and produces the
phenomenon called ‘sex activity’. …” Is this another specimen of “turning the
analogical key in the Secret Doctrine lock”? If so, the result is
scarcely encouraging; and when we read (p. 905) of “the throat centre of a
planetary Logos and of a Solar Logos” we realize that sheer anthropomorphism
can go no further.
Moreover, the “Mahachohan” (as Mrs.
Bailey writes the name) is stated (p. 907-8) to be directly connected with “the
effect that the devas of the kundalini fire are producing upon man” in the
direction of sex activity. The passage is too long and unintelligible to quote
here; the point to note for anyone who has learnt from H.P.B. and the Masters
something of the nature of the Maha Chohan, is the desecration involved in even
mentioning his name in such a connection.
Another example of Mrs. Bailey’s
ignorance of what H.P.B. really was occurs at p. 1037: “Newton, Copernicus,
Galileo, Harvey, and the Curies are, on their own line of force, light bringers
of equal rank with H.P.B.” Confucius, we are told, is to reincarnate and
superintend the work of “rendering radioactive some of the foremost thinkers.
…” Our Chinese friends will appreciate this piece of information.
“Cosmic rapture and rhythmic bliss (sic)
are the attributes of the Fourth Path. It is a form of identification which is
divorced from consciousness altogether.” Those who follow this Fourth Way are
called “the blissful dancing points of fanatical devotion,” which suggests
nothing so much as dancing dervishes!
IMITATION STANZAS OF DZYAN
An alleged extract in “Stanzas of
Dzyan” style “From the Archives of the Lodge” is given at p. 747-8, headed “The
Coming Avatar.” The following is a specimen of the flamboyant language:
“Greater the chaos becometh; the major centre with all the seven circulating
spheres rock with the echoes of disintegration. The fumes of utter blackness
mount upwards in dissipation. The noise discordant of the warring elements
greet the oncoming One, and deter Him not.”
Again, at p. 1267, we find a set of
“Seven Esoteric Stanzas from Archaic Formulas.” A note informs us that they
“form only one true stanza out of the oldest book in the world, and one which
the eye of the average man has never contacted” (sic). The last of them
is headed, as one might expect, with “The Path of Absolute Son ship,” and ends
suggestively with “To Him be glory of the Mother, Father, Son, as the One Who
hath existed in the past, the now and That which is to come.” The “Finale”
begins with “The morning stars sang in their courses” and ends with” the
marriage song of the Heavenly Man.”
A specimen of the alleged “Stanzas
of Dzyan” may also be given: “Riseth the cave of beauty rare, of colour
iridescent. Shineth (sic) the walls with azure tint, bathed in
the light of rose. The blending shade of blue irradiates the whole and all is
merged in gleaming.” Stanza VII, p. 22.
What a contrast to the genuine
Stanzas in the S.D., e.g. I, 35:
1. The Eternal Parent (Space),
wrapped in her ever invisible robes, had slumbered once again for seven
eternities.
2. Time was not, for it lay in the
infinite bosom of Duration.
The statement at p. 749 that H.P.B.
was “overshadowed” by “One greater than an Adept” scarcely agrees with
what we glean about her occult status in the Mahatma Letters and
elsewhere. However, at p. 757 she is described as “a true psychic and conscious
medium,” which is the spiritualistic theory above which A.P. Sinnett likewise
was never able to rise, especially after her death.
At the close of this century, we are
told, the “Avatar … will come as the Teacher of Love and Unity, and the Keynote
He will strike will be regeneration through love poured forth on all.” Imagine
H.P.B. or the Masters writing this kind of sentimental stuff, such as one reads
in Christian tracts or the “Order of the Star” literature.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WOULD-BE MAGICIANS
Pages 996-1026 contain “Fifteen
Rules for Magic” in the section “Thought and Fire Elementals.” They are in Mrs.
Bailey’s usual verbose and pseudo-Apocalyptic style, and are led up to by a
clever touch concerning “an old book of magic, hidden in the caves of learning,
guarded by the Masters”! from which some “appropriate words” are quoted:
“The Brothers of the Sun, through
the force of solar fire, fanned to a flame in the blazing vault of the second
Heaven, put out the lower lunar fires, and render naught the lower ‘fire by
friction’.”
“The Brother of the Moon ignores the
sun and solar heat; borrows his fire from all that triply is, and pursues his
cycle. The fires of hell await, and lunar fire dies out. Then neither sun nor
moon avails him, only the highest heaven awaits the spark electric, seeking
vibration synchronous from that which lies beneath. And yet it cometh not.”
In case the reader should fail to
make any sense of this gem of “magic,” he is told that “the terminology is in
the nature of a blind, which ever carries revelation to those who have the
clue, but tends to perplex and to bewilder the student who as yet is unready
for the truth.” It need hardly be added that nowhere in this entire “labyrinth
of words,” running to a total of 1282 pages, is the exact nature of the ‘clue’
more than darkly hinted at, as in the present instance. An old and common
trick, usually employed to conceal the complete absence of either clue or
meaning.
“Rule I” runs thus: “The Solar Angel
collects himself, scatters not his force, but in meditation deep communicates
with his reflection.” Why this is termed a “Rule” is not quite clear.
The other fourteen Rules are of
course equally meaningless and obscure – without the “clue.” These Rules are
given with over thirty pages of copious comments which make confusion worse
confounded, containing such terms as “the magician” (for whose use they are
formulated), “Solar Angel,” “Egoic Lotus,” “the Illuminator,” “the eye of the
Magician,” “the Agnichaitans,” “the Agnisuryans,” etc.
ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION OF COLOUR
“The ‘Eye of Shiva,’ when perfected,
is blue in color” (R. VI, p. 1011), “and as our solar Logos is the ‘Blue
Logos,’ so do His children occultly resemble Him; but this color must be
interpreted esoterically.”
This last is a specimen of the sort
of weird jumble which constitutes the major part of this book, in which H.P.
Blavatsky and her Secret Doctrine are much quoted and referred to in
footnotes, more as a blind to the reader than as bearing any real relation to
Mrs. Bailey’s own scheme. Familiar words and phrases are twisted from their
proper and original setting and use, in an effort to compile an imposing work
which may appear on the surface to continue the same line of teaching, but is
really quite different.
The language is certainly not such
as any “Tibetan,” or indeed any Oriental, would use. In fact, as I have shown,
it is distinctively Christian; and Mrs. Bailey’s inspirer, if a separate entity
at all, is much more likely to be an ecclesiastic of that faith who (like many
of them nowadays) has familiarized himself with the literature of Occultism and
is trying to make it fit the Christian scheme. It has even been suggested, not
without some justification, that the “Tibetan” is merely a misleading generic
term for a council of astute theologians for whom Mrs. Bailey is the mouthpiece
and scribe.
(This
text is part of the book “The pseudo-occultism of Alice Bailey” by Alice
Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump.)
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