Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00088)

I'd like to propose a concept from Stephen Prothero's The White
Buddhist as a healthy way to consider the changes that have
occurred in the Theosophical movement.  Healthy because
relatively nonjudgmental and fair.  Quoting from my forthcoming
book:

Prothero argues that Buddhism as understood by Olcott was a
`creolization' of liberal American Protestantism and traditional
Theravada Buddhism.  Creole languages combine elements from
`host' languages, which dominate the vocabulary, and `substrate'
languages, which dominate the grammar and syntax.  For example,
Haitian patois relies largely on French vocabulary but African
structural elements.  Similarly, Prothero argues, Olcott's
Buddhism used the vocabulary of his Asian host culture but
retained the basic assumptions of his native Protestantism.
Linguistics theorists note that "individuals seem to be almost as
consistent about clinging to inherited grammatical forms as they
are comfortable with adopting new vocabularies."  Applying this
metaphor to Cayce's readings, he can be said to have freely
adopted the vocabularies of Theosophy and New Thought while
retaining the fundamental logic of American Protestantism.
(p.52, Edgar Cayce in Context.)

This concept may allow for a less partisan approach to the ways
people like Leadbeater, Bailey, and the Ballards "adulterated"
Theosophy.  Leadbeater and Bailey, for example, came out of the
Church of England, with an elaborate ecclesiastical hierarchy and
a religious leader who was also the ruler of the nation.  So
they come along, accept HPB's teachings by and large and claim to
be simply developing her themes.  But clearly the fundamental
logic of the C of E gets applied to all the Theosophical
vocabulary, as both CWL and AAB present the Masters as an
elaborate hierarchy with titles and positions, which governs the
world.  So they creolized Theosophy and Anglicanism without
consciously setting out to do so.

Myrtle and Charles Fillmore studied Theosophy but basically came
out of the Christian Science/New Thought milieu.  So they
creolized those two streams, adapting Theosophical ideas like
reincarnation to a New Thought context.

One could go on explicating in this vein; Steiner, the Ballards,
the Prophets, all combining elements in ways that reflect their
personal backgrounds.  This will continue forever, as it is the
way new religious movements emerge and define themselves.
Now Blavatsky fundamentalists might say "That's precisely the
problem!  All these people took pure Theosophy and mixed it up
with extraneous elements, thus adulterating it.  Whereas from HPB
we get the direct, undiluted, unmixed TRUTH FROM THOSE WHO KNOW."
Problem with that is, HPB is obviously one of the biggest and
most successful creolizers of all time.  She learned a lot about
Eastern religions, as is evident in her writings, and acquired a
lot of Hindu and Buddhist vocabulary.  But as any non-Theosophist
familiar with her writings will tell you, the fundamental logic
of the Western occult tradition, on which she cut her eyeteeth,
underlies all that acquired Eastern vocabulary and is the bedrock
of her system of teachings.  Russian Rosicrucianism with its
"Unknown Superiors" around the globe and special focus on Tibet
is a good example of basic Western influences on HPB.

The question then facing us becomes not "Is this a pure and
unadulterated teaching" but "How successful, how appealing, how
useful and elegant is this particular combination of elements?"
For me, Cayce is the best of the 20th century heirs of HPB by
this criterion, but your mileage may vary.

As long as the argument is between advocates of an allegedly pure
and unadulterated teaching and those of anm allegedly "downgraded" parody of
same, it will just go around in circles.  If we admit that
*everything* is creolization in the field of religion, everything
is mixed up from preexisting elements, then there can be mutually
respectful discussion of their relative merits.

BTW as a Christian I see Jesus in just this light.  Not THE ONE
TRUTHGIVER who learned nothing from any human agency, but rather
a creolizer of considerable sophistication.  Mixing Greek
philosophy and Jewish mysticism, he created a potent new
combination that reverberated throughout the centuries.  But he
wasn't "ideologically pure" any more than HPB was, or CWL, or
Cayce.


Namaste,
Paul