Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00063)

Chuck, 

Thanks for your important thoughts below.  

Besides interpretations are, we still need more evidence on the possible sympathy of Adyar leaders during the 1920s -- 1930s towards Nazi-Fascism.  Any help in that is most welcome.

CWL has rascist texts against black people and indiginous peoples in his book "The Perfume of Egypt".  As this involves Brazil and South America, I must still bring this here to Theos-talk.

CWL's and AB's reign over the Adyar TS was synchronistic with Hitler's ascension in Germany, Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal,  Franco's ascension in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, Juan Perón in Argentina, and so on.    It was, indeed, the  "dark cycle of the century". 

But there is not even a  rumour of fascism/nazism among Theosophists who followed HPB and the Masters in those times.  

Coincidence or not, HPB students were mostly based in the USA.

Nazism and Fascism, as anti-semitism and despise for black people and indigenous peoples,  are clearly against the theosophical ideal of Universal Brotherhood.  

HPB students never forgot that as long as I know.  

Besides, from the 1930s on, the whole of the theosophical movement was, no doubt, on the side of democracy and against the Nazi mass-killers. 

So, as regards the Second World War and since its preparation years (1936-1939), no section of the theosophical movement had any involvement with 
nazi-fascism. 

Theosophical movement is essentially democratic  although some of its outer organizations are far from being based on truly democratic and transparent principles. 

Other spiritual movements are even more top-down and less democratic -- less open to contradiction and to free debate --  than us. 


Best regards,   Carlos Cardoso Aveline 












De:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com

Para:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com

Cópia:

Data:Wed, 5 Jul 2006 13:22:43 EDT

Assunto:Re: Theos-World CHUCK ON THE NAZIS

> 
> In a message dated 7/5/2006 11:00:10 AM Central Standard Time, 
> carlosaveline@terra.com.br writes:
> 
> I would appreciate any commentaries -- and especially further 
> bibliographical evidences -- about the issue. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It has been many years so I can't give you the exact month, but in 1925, you 
> will find that the Adyar Theosophist published a very long, two part article 
> praising Mussolini's Italy. 
> 
> Now, you must understand the appeal of fascism in that period. Europeans in 
> particular were not used to the idea of popular democracy as we understand 
> the concept. They had a very top-down view of how things should be and the 
> post WWI world was very confusing to them. Leaders mattered!
> 
> Given that, it is not surprising that Mrs. Besant, with her love of 
> hierarchy and uniforms, would fall into that trap. Rational thought, critical 
> thought was never her strong point. 
> 
> And this was not just confined to Europeans. In the United States, there 
> was some pretty nasty eugenics legislation and some visual trappings that 
> proved to be so embarrassing that you have to really dig into old movies to find 
> them. For example, in saying the Pledge of Allegiance, the practice was to 
> start with the hand over the heart and then, at the phrase "to the flag" move 
> the right hand out in an exact duplicate of the Nazi salute. That disappeared 
> really fast in the 1930s, but the Roosevelt administration actively 
> encouraged parades by industrial workers, (in the 1980s these folks were derided as 
> "the marching morons with shovels" as an explanation of why the Democrats were 
> having so much trouble) which looked terribly similar to Nazi parades, so 
> similar in fact that German ambassador was said to have remarked that the only 
> difference was that in Germany they wore swastikas. Those disappeared too 
> and it is actually rather hard to find newsreel footage of them.
> 
> Hitler was a great fan of Zane Grey western novels and Henry Ford's 
> anti-semetic diatribe was one of his inspirations.
> 
> My point of all this is that given the culture of the time, it would not be 
> surprising if there were an intersect between Nazi ideology and Theosophy. 
> On the contrary, it would be surprising if there were not. 
> 
> Chuck the Heretic
> 
> 
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> 
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