Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00315)

<<<<<<<<<<<Jerry: "I do suspect that her Globes and Planes Model is her own twist on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, which is distinctly Western. There is nothing like it in the East."

Most people do not know that there is a large difference between the Orthodox Jewish Kaballah, and the so called Western or Christian Kaballah that took foothold in various Rocicrucian and esoteric Masonic organisations during the 17th,18th,19th century's and also was the source of Blavatsky's Globes and Planes Model.>>>

JERRY: I use K for the former and Q for the latter to distinguish them.

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<<<Although the idea of the sephiroth can be found in the Zohar (as such still studied by conservative Jews today), and hints of it can also be found in Irenaeus, who wrote circa 175 C.E., the first appearance of the ten sephirot as such was in "Portae Lucis"(translated: Portals of Light) 1516. On the title page a seated man is shown holding a tree with the ten sephirot.>>>

JERRY: Yes.

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<<<Blavatsky's Globes correspond with the Sephiroth, and her planes are identical with those on the Tree of Life. All she did was to re-arrange their positions so that they are circular or chain-like .>>>

JERRY: Yes, and she also deliberately omitted the Abyss. When I first mentioned the Great Outer Abyss on this list some years ago, everyone thought I had lost my mind, and not a single Theosophist appeared to know about it (though Chuck likely knew). Today it is still met with scepticism, but when I gave a quote from Blavatsky "proving" that she was well aware of the Abyss, everyone ignored it (as they are prone to do with quotes that they don't like).

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<<<Giordano Bruno's De monade is is intertwined with the Renaissance literature of the christian kabbalah which was widespread in 16th century thought. Renaissance contains elements of both Gnosticism and Neo-platonism, and was (seen as the real bible concerned with the nature and structure of all creation from the divine to the material worlds.>>>

OK. And I agree with her Globes and Planes, or the GV Model as I call it, is a twist on the Qabala and is not Eastern at all (but it is a good model, and one that have used effectively).

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<<<Representatives of the christian kabbalah early on are among others Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin, Cornelius Agrippa or Guillaume Postel. And later where of course Eliphas Levi, Westcott, and many others.

Western or Christian Kabbalism grew from German and Lurianic Kabbalism and is really based on an historical misunderstanding that according to the bible wich was believed to be historical fact, esotericists in the Renaisance tought that the Kabbala was the ancient wisdom religion of the world. In other words it was seen as the explanation (true “esoteric” meaning) of the creation of the world. And wich explains maybe why Blavatsky initially agreed with this Renaisance originated tradition and why she included the basic Kaballistic structure in her own "Secret Doctrine".>>>

JERRY: Yes, and the basic idea is also found in the Aeons of Gnosticism, as is the Abyss, and HPB was familiar with some of the Gnostic teachings.

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<<<These "roots" of Blavatskyan Theosophy are similar to what earlier Theosophists, before Blavatsky, from Jacob Boehme to Swedenborg also used, but can at this point not really be called genuine Tibetan Buddhism even Blavatsky claimed to have studied in Tibet before she wrote Isis Unveiled. In fact Swedenborg was the first to suggest that ultimate religious wisdom might be located in Asia, he said that the original "word" of the Bible had been preserved in "magna Tartaria.">>>

JERRY: I don't doubt that she studied there with someone, because she has a good understanding of sutrayana as found in Tibetan Buddhism. Her Voice of the Silence is pure sutrayana. But her writings on Tantricism are all purely Indian and she seems to have had no knowledge of Tibetan Tantricism or Vajrayana. And of course it is Vajrayana that Tzongkhapa and many other great Tibetan Teachers viewed as vastly superior to sutrayana.

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<<<And is off course an historical error, the Christian Bible, but allows us to trace the source of Blavatskyan Theosophy. In fact the belief in an "Ancient Wisdom Tradition" came thereby from the same error and this idea was particularly popular in Renaisance Europe. The first to make an attempt to write a large book about it that time was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 1463 - 1494 ,Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486)>>>

JERRY: I came across this idea of an "ancient wisdom teaching" with some Rosicrucians years before I heard of Theosophy (of course, maybe they "borrowed" it from Blavatsky with credit?). My neighbors for a time, were members of a California-based Rosicrucian group and this is where I first heard of reincarnation. However, I soon discovered that both he and his wife were racially biased, and so I never thought highly of Rosicrucians, and I still can see where the idea of reincarnation can easily get elitist.

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<<<Also Blavatsky according to what was available in the 19th century versus to Pico in the 15th, was able to already include much more in her book synthesis, and thus we see Indian kalpa theory and Kabbalistic aeonic configurations, Rosicrucian material, all coming together in a synthetic universalism that is unique for its time. >>>

JERRY: All of which are used to show a common basis of teaching. Rather like the old mountain analogy, all religions and philosophies tend to merge together at the top-most point.

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<<<Although from the beginning Indic materials where included in her work (Isis) the vocabulary of this was already available from classical models of time and history, such as those of Hesiod (c. 750 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (384-355 B.C.E.), or from the expansive visions of Boehme and Swedenborg or P.B.Randolph who alledgedly had studied in the east.>>>

JERRY: Isis is a hodgepodge. The best part is the last chap which deals with magic, and sadly this is the part that most Theosophsts today ignore.

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<<<The person who is said to planted the idea in Blavatsky's ear to write a new synthesis in the form of Isis was Sotheran, who at least in one newspaper report of the time is claimed to be the real K.H. (Wich isn’t true of course but it makes a point regarding Sotheran’s possible influence)>>>

JERRY: OK, I am not a historian, but obviously someone influenced her.

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<<<The Lurianic Kabbalists used a mediational technique to travel to the Lower World to rescue the divine sparks and bring them to the Upper World. God's exiled light was being brought together with its source, the snake bites itself in the tail. And that is what is contained in Blavatsky's circular or chain-like structure.>>

JERRY: Right. And this idea is found just about everywhere, including the bodhisattva. I first came across it in the Tarot, with the Hanged Man.

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<<<Personally I think she got the re-arrangement idea from famous "Theosophist" Jacob Boehme who as far as I know is the first one (among the authors Blavatsky for shure read) to employ the ten Sephirot model in a circular fashion, like a clockwork ("Uhrwerk") as a metaphor for
progression through harmony.>>>

JERRY: Could be, I don't know. Boehme has always been too Christian for me.

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<<<Blavatsky explained Boehme's metaphysics by claiming that he was a reincarnation "of one, who, in a previous birth, had attained through 
extreme purity of life and efforts in the right direction almost to a Yogistate of holiness and saintship" (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 
vol. XII, 371-372.) And in the SD she supposed to have written that he was a "nursling of the nirnanakayas.">>>

JERRY: OK, but of course we have to remember that she did not know what a nirmanakaya really was (ie the form-body of a buddha).

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<<<<Blavatsky also mentioned "The Ring Pass-not is at the circumstance of the manifested Universe" about wich she tought her students in London
Sept.10,1890, that might of course been unrelated to the above.>>>

JERRY: This is a reference to the Great Outer Abyss, which is the great Ring Pass-Not for the human mind. The model that she discusses in the SD only addresses the lower four planes and lower 7 globes. She said almost nothing at all about the Abyss and what lies beyond it. G de Purucker describes it with some authority, however.

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<<<Reg. "Mathers" book The Kabbalah Unveiled that you mentioned in your earlier mail, Spierenburgs publication of "The Inner Group Teachings of H.P.Blavatsky"(1985) agknowledges at the beginning on p.x : "The Golden Dawn'.H.P.B. maintained relations with it; several members of her 'Lodge' were also members of the 'Golden Dawn' and vice versa." >>>

JERRY: True. Mathers was a terrible egotist, and he was quite proud of knowing Blavatsky, although he never was a Theosophist. 

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<<<In the Inner Group Blavatsky’s students where tought to use creative visualisation and identify with the Masters as living within themselves.>>>

JERRY: This is part of what is called Guru Yoga (lama is Tibetan for the Sanskrit guru, BTW) in Tibetan Buddhism.

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<<<And somehow this reminds me of Hartmann who much earlier wrote Blavatsky to tell her that she really was talking about her "inner" experiences . But Blavatsky scoffed him >>>

JERRY: The two main stages of Tibetan Buddhism Vajrayana are the Generation Stage followed by the Completion Stage. In the generation stage, one begins with visualization and imagination. In the completion stage the imagined becomes reality, and the chela/student actually attunes telepathically with the guru/teacher.

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<<<W. Q. Judge interesting to note reported that Blavatsky in contrast to other members in the early TS had a difficult time to learn and “
see” Planetary Spirits (later in some form Masters, expecially if you read Anrias’s books). Judge commented " H.P B. appears to have
been greatly troubled, for though some members of the nascent Theosophical Society were able to get ,visions of pure Planetary Spirits,' she could only see ,earthly exhalations, elementary spirits' of the same category, which she said played the chief parts in materializing seances." (From "Letters of H. P. Blavatsky," The 
Path 9, no. 9 ,December 1894:p. 268.)

The belief that elementary spirits could be of assistance to do such 
immaginarry feats was a belief that stems directly from Renaisance 
magic theurgic grimoires. >>>

JERRY: It is also found in the lower schools of Tibetan Buddhism as well as Bon.

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<<<The above seems to be a transformed (evolved) form of what she was then later presenting to her students in London regarding visuallising the Masters as living within themselves.>>>

JERRY: Yes. I wonder how many made it to the completion stage?

Jerry S.


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