LIST OF ARTICLES

BOOK “THE THEOSOPHICAL MASTERS” BY BRENDAN FRENCH



Dr. Brendan James French to obtain the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sydney, wrote a thesis titled entitled “The Theosophical Masters: An Investigation into the Conceptual Domains of H.P. Blavatsky and C.W. Leadbeater” (2000)
 
For those who want to know more about the masters, I recommend read their doctoral thesis, since it is a very abundant investigation (829 pages), though Mr. French do not distinguish true esotericists from liars and therefore he considered them all equally.
 
You can download it at this link and below I put the introduction and the index:
 
 
 
Abstract
 
H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) and C. W. Leadbeater (1854-1934) were successive ideologues for the Theosophical Society. The revelation they articulated was premised on the existence and benevolence of a Brotherhood of Masters with whom they alleged contact. The Masters are presented as perfected men, possessed of supranormal physical and spiritual endowments, whose task it is to guide humanity along an inclined trajectory toward ultimate divinisation.
 
The objective of the present work is to examine the Masters phenomenologically, and to ascertain their role within Theosophical discourse. No attempt is made to discern the ontic reality of the Masters as such an enquiry lies beyond the scholar’s methodological apparatus. Rather, the Master is examined as a function of Theosophical esotericism, and as a pivotal personification of Theosophy’s occultistic engagement with such prevailing paradigms as progressivism, evolutionism, and perfectibilism.
 
The work is divided into five parts: the first is concerned with methodologies and heuristic definitions; the second examines the ideational structures of the Blavatskian conceptual domain; the third explores Leadbeater’s redaction of the Blavatskian template; the fourth proposes several typological categories under which the Masters may be viewed (the Mercurian, the Monastic, the PredagogicaI, the Oriental, the Perfected, the Angelic, the Rosicrucian); and the fifth is devoted to appendices (portraits, geographical location, fictional literature, ‘Malign Masters’, and contemporary recensions of the motif).
 
 
 
 
 
Table of Contents
 
PART ONE: METHODOLOGY AND OVERVIEW
 
Chapter 1. Methodological issues for the study of the Theosophical Masters
 
 - Religionism and reductionism
 - The sociological method
 - An empirical approach
 
Chapter 2. Purview of the present study
 
 - Delimitations with regard to source materials
 - Delimitations with regard to time period
 - Delimitations with regard to geography and language
 - Preliminary observations with regard to terminology
 
Chapter 3. The Master – A heuristic definition
 
 - Toward a definition: a selection of materials
 - Characteristics and attributes of the Master
 - Functions of the Master
 - A working heuristic
 - Initial observations
 
 
 
PART TWO: HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
 
Chapter 4. The early years
 
 - Childhood and youth
 - The Blavatskian odyssey
 - Fraternities and friendships
 
Chapter 5. The Theosophical Society
 
-      Ex Oriente Lux?
 
Chapter 6. Early Masters of the Theosophical Society
 
 - Ramsgate, 1851
 - Spiritualism and John King
 - In correspondence with the Masters
 
Chapter 7. An extended family: extramural Masters
 
 - William Stainton Moses and Imperator
 - Frederick Hockley and the Crowned Angel
 - Emma Hardinge Britten and the Chevalier Louis
 
Chapter 8. Isis Unveiled
 
Chapter 9. India
 
 - The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samiij of India
 - ‘Budhism’, Buddhism, and Chelaship
 
Chapter 10. The Mahatma Letters
 
 - Intimations of a Theosophical Universe
 - Divinity and materiality
 
Chapter 11. The Adyar years
 
 - The ‘Kiddle Incident’
 - The Masters in propriis personis
 - Occident or Orient?
 - The Coulombs and the ‘Hodgson Report’
 
Chapter 12. The Secret Doctrine I
 
-The Book of Dzyan
-Cosmogony and temporality
 
Chapter 13. The Secret Doctrine II
 
 - Cosmology, Anthropogeny, and Ethnography
 - Evolution and involution
 - Karma and reincamationism
 - The power behind the processus
 
Chapter 14. The Blavatskian synthesis
 
 - Developmentalist historiography and Joachimism
 - Jacob Boehme
 - Eliphas Livi
 - Giordano Bruno
 - A Renovated Prisca Theologia
 - Blavatskian Gnosis
 
Chapter 15. The final years
 
 - The Esoteric Section
 - The Inner Group
 - Heavenly ascent
 - The passing of Blavatsky
 
 
 
PART THREE: CHARLES WEBSTER LEADBEATER
 
Chapter 16. The conceptual interregnum
 
 - Charismatic authority in Post-Blavatskian Theosophy
 - William Quan Judge and the unfalsifiability of Masters’ mandates
 - A new mouthpiece for the Masters
 
Chapter 17. The Leadbeater ascendancy
 
 - Childhood and youth
 - Introduction to Theosophy and Occult apprenticeship
 - Clairvoyant investigations
 - Occult chemistry
 - Theosophical homiletics
 
Chapter 18. ‘Crucifixion and resurrection’
 
 - Allegations of misconduct
 - The ‘Adyar manifestations’
 
Chapter 19. The Order of Universal Co-Masonry
 
 - Origins of a feminine Freemasonry
 - Theosophical Freemasonry
 - The seven rays
 - The emergence of the sixth sub-race
 - The coming of the World-Teacher
 
Chapter 20. The Liberal Catholic Church
 
 - Theosophical Christianity and Christian Theosophy
 - Episcopi Vagantes (‘Wandering Bishops’)
 - Leadbeaterian Liberal Catholicism
 - The (Magic and) Science of the Sacraments
 
Chapter 21. Krishnamurti and the Order of the Star in the East
 
-The discovery and training of the vehicle
-Accelerated evolution
-The vehicle charts a pathless land
 
Chapter 22. An occult laboratory
 
 - The World Mother and the Seven Virgins of Java
 - The Egyptian Rite of the Ancient Mysteries
 - Leadbeaterian Theosophy and Causative Theurgy
 - The making of a Master
 - The passing of Leadbeater
 
 
 
PART FOUR: A MASTERS TYPOLOGY
 
Introduction
 
Chapter 23. The Mercurian Master
 
 - Leadbeater and the animation of statues
 
Chapter 24. The Monastic Master
 
-      A short theological excursus
 
Chapter 25. The Pedagogical Master
 
Chapter 26. The Oriental Master
 
Chapter 27. The Perfected Master
 
 - Progress
 - Evolution
 
Chapter 28. The Angelic Master
 
 - Enoch
 - Melchizedek
 - Theosophical Historiography, Messianism, and Kabbalah
 
Chapter 29. The Rosicrucian Master
 
 - The Rosicrucian novel
 - Zanoni
 - A short note concerning ‘Jack the Ripper’
 
Conclusion
 
 
 
PART FIVE: APPENDICES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
 
Appendix A. Portraits of the Masters
 
 - List of figures
 - Figures
 - Portraits of the Masters
 - Some stylistic remarks
 
Appendix B. The homes of the Masters
 
 - Geography and the Masters
 - Shamballah
 - Europe and the Middle East
 - The United States of America
 - South America
 
Appendix C. The Masters and fictional literature
 
Appendix D. Malign Masters
 
 - Savitri Devi and the Hitlerian Avatar
 - The Order of the Nine Angles
 
Appendix E. Theosophy after Leadbeater
 
1) Theosophical Groups
 
The Adyar Society
 - Geoffrey Hodson
 
The Point Loma Society
 - Katherine Tingley
 - Gottfried de Purucker
 - Arthur Latham Conger
 - James Long
 
Groups Deriving from the Point Loma Society
 - Ernest Hargrove and the Esoteric School
 - Word Foundation
 - Temple of the People
 - The Theosophical Society of New York
 - Franz Hartmann and the International Theosophische Verbruderung
 - The United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT) and the Dzyan Esoteric School
 - The International Group of Theosophists
 
2) Para-Theosophical Groups
 
Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophical Society
Alice La Trobe Bateman Bailey and the Arcane School
Benjamin Creme
Cyril Meir Scott and The Initiate
 
3) Extra-Theosophical Groups
 
Golden Dawn Masters: Theosophy and Theurgia
 - Robert William Felkin
 - Dion Fortune (Violet Mary Firth)
 
The Rosicrucian Order of the Crotona Fellowship
Baird Thomas Spalding
Manley Palmer Hall and the Philosophical Research Society
Guy Warren Ballard and the ‘I AM’ Movement
The Church Universal and Triumphant
Tuesday Lobsang Rampa and Cyril Henry Hoskin
The Channeled Masters
The Space Masters
 
Bibliography
 
Note: the work contains a substantial collection of illustrations of supposed portrayals of the Masters.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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