Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00175)

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Message in the 1900 Letter:

MISLEADING SECRECY AND THE NEED TO GO AHEAD

by Carlos Cardoso Aveline

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The 1900 Letter of a Mahatma to Annie Besant might  be authentic, for it has 
a most important message to the theosophical movement.(1)

Its timing is significant. It is an official, solemn  FAREWELL  LETTER  
written exactly  in 1900, the  year HPB said  Aquarius Age would precisely 
start (2).

Of course, Annie Besant as an individual did not deserve that letter, for 
various reasons. Yet the movement did deserve it.  At the occult plane and 
akasha level, the movement still  had a great amount of vibration rates 
coming from the Masters themselves and from HPB (a True Initiate).  The 
Masters could not be indifferent to it.

The letter  is a last, vigorous warning  against credulity, pride, search 
for personal power, emotional worship and blind belief.

It gives some  key hints and instructions not only for the  movement in the 
20th century, but for the movement in the 21st century.   It is not a 
coincidence, perhaps, that its full text was only published in 1987, during 
the recent “end of century” effort.

There was also  one or two short term goals to be achieved by that letter.

One of them was to reduce for some time at least the “cant about ‘Masters’ 
”.  The letter said: “Nameless and silently we work and the continual 
references to ourselves and the repetition of our names raises up a confused 
aura that hinders our  work.”

Another short term goal of the letter was to stop the speculations that the 
Old Lady was coming back in that very moment, as the little daughter of Mr. 
Chackravartti. The letter says:

“The intense desire to see Upasika  reincarnate at once has raised a 
misleading  Mayavic ideation. Upasika (...) cannot come again so soon.”

The reason for such an authoritative clarification was probably to prevent 
too great disturbances in the “skandhas” or karmic impressions left by the 
Messenger.  Such skandhas have a special importance in the case of disciples 
who renounce Devachan and come back to work relatively soon. A long Devachan 
gives the skandhas time to dissolve, while the disciples who renounce it 
will have to face their skandhas (including their public image skandhas) 
rather soon and in a  direct way.

Therefore, having some quietness about  “HPB” was probably a technical 
necessity in those first years after the death of her physical body.

The complete text of the 1900 Letter anticipates nearly all of  the absurd 
mistakes Annie Besant would do in the following decades.

Besant and Leadbeater did everything  the Master warned her against,  from 
emotional worship to repeating their  names in an irresponsible way;  and  
from creating an “esoteric popery” (Master’s words) down to being misled by 
“pride, vanity and love of power”.

And yet, besides all of this – important though these points are – there is 
one particular sentence in the complete text of the 1900 Letter  to which we 
must pay thorough  attention,  now and in the future. This sentence says:

“Misleading secrecy has given the death blow to numerous organizations.”

The main treason committed by CWL and his protégé Annie Besant consists, 
perhaps, in creating a complex  power structure which can be rightfully 
described, in the Master’s  words,  as “an Esoteric Popery”,  based on  
“misleading secrecy”.

In that, as in other things, Annie Besant  was a victim  of her own 
credulity, pride and love for power, as the Letter explains.

Three non-theosophical, secretive structures  were implanted in the inner 
instances of the  theosophical movement, Adyar,  and they are even today 
practical tools for its political and institutional control.

One of them is the  co-masonic movement.  Whatever its merits are, it does 
not belong to the theosophical movement and its feeding upon the 
theosophical movement is a clear form of magnetic vampirism and power 
manipulation.

Another one is the Liberal Catholic Church, a neojesuitical body which now 
provides the last examples of active defenders of C. W. Leadbeater.   The 
rest of Adyar people typically accepts  the evidences that CWL was not 
legitimate and only  have courage to defend him in indirect ways -- like 
attacking HPB through the adoption of Solovyof’s or the Coulombs’ libels.

But L.C.C. priests and associates still come out to openly defend CWL’s 
accuracy.  The L.C.C. also uses a misleading secrecy about its obscure 
origins. It directly appeals to people’s credulity and “emotional worship”.

As to the third structure, it  has been publically referred to by José Ramón 
Sordo (in  “Fohat”, Fall 2005), by Geoffrey Farthing (in his 1996-1997  
“Manifestos”) and by Gregory Tillett in several places.   It is  the 
“Egyptian Rite”, or E.R.

This “E.R.”  is different from the Esoteric School or masonic groups  in one 
important thing.

While the existence of the Esoteric School is public, and only its internal 
proceedings are to be secret, we have that the very existence of the 
Egyptian Rite is not supposed to be known, except by those who are invited 
to belong to it. Therefore its existence will not be confirmed by its 
members or leaders.  It works as a “post-E.S.”  possibility for some 
long-standing E.S. members, and it leads them into a ritualistic trap which 
will reduce their search for Truth to mere emotional worship and blind 
belief.

Thus,  the E.R. is an important mechanism for the practical management of 
the  Adyar movement as an “esoteric popery”, with the help of “misleading 
secrecy”, to keep to the Master’s words.

One hundred and six years after the 1900  Letter was first received, it may 
be the time, now,  to start unveiling and discussing the political use of 
secrecy as a way to sustain  blind belief and ritualistic structures.

I guess in the next few years the Pedagogy of the Mahatmas might be 
“rediscovered”  as a valid tool for the movement as a whole --  and for each 
of us in particular.  I sincerely hope so.

The pedagogy of the Mahatmas is the pedagogy of truthfulness.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Om, shanti.

Best regards, Carlos Cardoso Aveline


O o o O o o O o o O o o O o o O o  oO o o O

NOTES:

(1) Its full text was first published in “The Eclectic Theosophist” in 1987 
and later in “Theosophical History”, October 1987, pp. 115-117.  Up to now 
people have been so busy discussing its legitimacy  that they didn’t had the 
time to discuss its content. Yet  its content is a major evidence of its 
INTERNAL legitimacy,  regardless of its OUTER source.  On the other hand,  
Adyar officers  have done their best to keep this letter’s full text in 
oblivion.  Its uncomplete version is the Letter 46, first series, “Letters 
> From the Masters of the Wisdom” (TPH, Adyar).   Even the incomplete version 
is strong and significant, though.

(2) As to 1900 being the mathematical starting point for the Aquarius Age, 
see the text “The Esoteric Character of the Gosples” in H.P.B.’s “Collected 
Writings”, TPH, India/USA, Volume VIII, p. 174, footnote.

O o o O o o O o o O o o O o o O o  oO o o O

_________________________________________________________________
Copa 2006: Juiz @#$%*&!? e mais frases para seu MSN Messenger 
http://copa.br.msn.com/extra/frases/