Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt01403)

Hi Mark
  I have printed out your email response to my letter and posted it on our community bulletin board so that a wider group  of Theosophical students can gain some insights from your response.
  First let me say that I studied HPB for twenty years before I was even exsposed to Alice Bailey. I have been elected President to three Theosophical lodges in the US, the last one being Boston from 1989-91 Granted these facts may not be any criteria for my level of spiritual developement nor of any high initiatory status but I must have known something about  Theosophy to get into those positions don't you think? My teaching profession which has spanned some 40 years included the classics of HPB such as the Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled but also included a number of Baileys books such as a Treatise on Cosmic. To make your evaluation of  Baileys material as BS I must ask you how many of her books have you read?  Who can question that HPB is the original flame  for the dissemination of the ancient wisdom teachings here in the west?. Theosophy is not a religion however but a method of inquiry. If according to Theosophies basic tenet that "There is no religion higher then
 truth" does it matter where we find it? and cannot there be many contributors to this vast ocean of truth? At the Boston Lodge everyone knew who were the classical theosophist and who were those who contributed their own insights latter. . Your irrate and angry response to my letter to the theos-group proves my point, Kama - manas.You need to qualify your disagreements about the Bailey material more clearly. Did you come to these conclusion about Bailey on your own or did you get them from someone else? You suggest that "I am am pushing Bailey onto the theos group." I am sorry to inform you  and this is just my humble opinion but  this theos-group is a highly integrated and advanced group of students that can make there own descision on what may be true or false and may not need your intervention on their behalf. They may be far more eclectic then youI have read the The psuedo occultism of Alice Bailey a number of times and if I felt you would debate certain points
 objectively I would engage in a healthy exchange or dialogue. The tone of your letter suggest that that would not be possible. Theosophy is not a person nor an organization but a body of wisdom that emeges into the world through many people and many sources. I take what rings true to my intuition and disregard the rest. 
  You say that if I want to study HPB that I am welcome but if not go someplace else. Am I to assume you are the  spokes person for this group?. and if so who gave you the authority? What if I said that this theos-group "is the other group" and that some other group that you may not be familiar with didn't like me studying HPB and said the very thing that you are now say.Get out you are not one of us! Your overt hostility reveals much. I am sorry that what I have said antagonises you and I apologize for the hurt that you have received somewhere along the way. I know that your intentions although somewhat misguided are no doubt good. Let me close this letter with a poem by great Sufi Rumi, a man far wiser then I.
   
  I weep for those who have ungrateful souls,
  I weep when boys throw stones at dogs,
  I weep for dogs that bite for no reason.
  Forgive the harm that anyone does.
  We are here to be forgiveness door through which freedom comes.
  I weep when I ask that the door not be shut.
  Some attend to individual mercies
  and some attend  to universal grace.
  Try to let them merge.
  Pond water eventually arrives at the ocean.
  One saint works and lingers in the lakes of personal life.
  Another plays without limits in the sea.
  Rumi

Mark Jaqua <proto37@yahoo.com> wrote:
          Re: Bailey's Initiations

Duane: Bailey was a two-bit medium 
channeling a spook with endless confusing BS, 
and making a buck riding on Blavatsky's 
coat-tails. You ever compare what Bailey 
writes with Real Blavatsky? Pasted 
below is the Preface of Cleather and 
Crump's "The Psuedo-Occultism of Alice 
Bailey." As far as I think personally 
- if you want to study Blavatsky, Welcome 
& Wonderful! If you want to push Baily 
- go to a Bailey site.

- jake j.

PREFACE

The following notes and comments 
on two of Mrs. Bailey's principal works, 
A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and Initiation, 
Human and Solar, were undertaken at the 
suggestion of Mr. J.C. Miller, of Manila, 
a member of the Blavatsky Association, as 
part of the work assigned to its Defence 
Committee. That work, as we understand it, 
includes such as was done in H.P. Blavatsky: 
A Great Betrayal; and it will be seen that 
the present notes are directed against 
another aspect of the same movement. They 
do not profess to be in any way complete, 
but merely aim at drawing attention to a 
few salient points which will at once strike 
students familiar with H.P. Blavatsky's works.

We particularly wish to emphasize 
that we have undertaken this extremely 
distasteful task only from a strong sense 
of our duty to the cause of H. P. Blavatsky 
and her work. We have never met Mrs. Bailey, 
and not having previously read any of 
her books, we were unaware how closely 
their general scheme and phraseology resemble 
that of the Besant-Leadbeater "Neo-Theosophy" 
which includes the Liberal Catholic Church 
and World-Teacher propaganda. Both the 
latter are more or less veiled attempts 
to divert the pure stream of Oriental 
Esoteric Philosophy, introduced to the 
West by H.P. Blavatsky, into a definitely 
Christian channel. This is 

done partly by the substitution of 
such terms as "God," "The Logos" (as a He), 
"The Trinity," "The Master Jesus," etc., 
etc. At the same time, in Cosmic Fire an 
astute endeavour is made, by copious 
references to and quotations from H.P. 
Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, to convey 
the impression that the former is a 
continuation of the latter -in fact, a 
"fragment of the Secret Doctrine" (Fore-word, x).


Even such a cursory examination as we 
have had time to give, however, has 
convinced us that there is little or 
nothing in common between them. The 
impression left on the mind is that of 
a subtle attempt to substitute a specifically 
Christian system for the universal one 
of the Secret Doctrine, rather than 
"confirming and amplifying" that marvelous 
work, as admirers of Cosmic Fire have stated.


In a letter to the Occult Review, July 7, 
1928, Mrs. Bailey denies that she ever 
claimed that her alleged inspirer "The 
Tibetan" with whom she has "cooperated 
in producing" Cosmic Fire, Initiation, 
etc., is one of the Masters of the 
Trans-Himalayan Group. "It is the express 
wish of the Tibetan," she declares, 
"that his real name be withheld; it 
is his desire that the books be studied 
and valued on the basis of their own 
intrinsic worth and by their appeal or 
non-appeal to the intuition, and not 
because any person presumes to claim 
authority for them."


We have kept this injunction carefully 
in mind, and have judged the statements 
of the "Tibetan" strictly on their face 
value. Further, Mrs. Bailey quotes what 
she said so far back as February, 1923, 
in her magazine The Beacon, about "the 
blind credulity of a certain group who 
accept any statement provided it is 
backed by an Hierarchical claim of some 
kind, and the narrow sectarianism which 
would make a prophet out of H.P.B. and 
a Bible out of the Secret Doctrine."


The first part of this extract applies 
much more to the Besant-Leadbeater 
doctrines and to Mrs. Bailey's own books 
(which fairly bristle with implied, if 
not expressed, "authority") than to the 
Secret Doctrine. H.P.B.'s claim for that 
work is couched in the words of Montaigne: 
"I have here made only a nosegay of culled 
flowers, and have brought nothing of my 
own but the string that ties them" 
(S. D. I., xivi.).


After all, what is there of "blind 
credulity" and "narrow sectarianism" 
in regarding H.P.B. as a "prophet" and 
the S..D. as a "Bible" in the best 
sense of those terms? Was she not a 
true prophet and one who brought a 
wonderful message entirely new to the 
modern world? Where else is to be found 
the gigantic and all-embracing threefold 
system of evolution so clearly and convincingly 
expounded in the S.D., supported by a wealth 
of evidence from every imaginable source? The 
work stands absolutely alone, unapproached 
and unapproachable in our times; a monument 
so great that it is even yet too near us to 
be adequately appreciated. Its appeal 
throughout is entirely to reason and never 
to credulity. As Mr. Baseden Butt says in 
the finest estimate yet written: "If these, 
and her other writings were all produced 
by Madame Blavatsky's unaided talent, she 
must have possessed the intellectual 
resources of at least three ordinary geniuses 
. . . This amazing woman has handled with 
the authentic tones of Authority the 
profoundest, most vital and abstruse 
subjects known to mankind" (Madame Blavatsky. 
By G. Baseden Butt, London, Rider and Co., 
1926, p. 216)


Mrs. Bailey evidently considers that her 
own works are to be judged on the same 
level, for she continues: "It is high 
time, therefore, that occult books should 
be put forth and judged because of their 
contents and not because this, that and 
the other Master is supposed to be 
responsible for them or because they 
agree or disagree with the Secret Doctrine." 
Mrs. Bailey's evident implication that 
the S.D. was "put forth and judged" in 
the latter sense is entirely false, as 
any student with an intelligent understanding 
of its contents will agree. That the 
Masters M. and K.H assisted H.P.B. to 
write it, as stated both by them and by 
her (see Mahatma Letters, and her own 
to Sinnett), makes no difference to one's 
judgement of its value and immensity.


Unfortunately for Mrs. Bailey's disclaimer, 
her "Tibetan Brother" is undoubtedly 
believed by most of her followers to be 
a member of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, 
as two of the most prominent in America 
have themselves told us. The name Tibetan, 
coupled with the assumption of practically 
unlimited knowledge, inevitably suggest it. 
Her books are full of pure assertions 
concerning the Universe and it most 
advanced beings which only a high Adept 
could possess - if true, which in most 
instances seems more than doubtful.


Finally, a most important claim made 
by Mrs. Bailey in her Foreword to Cosmic 
Fire, must not be overlooked. She says 
(p. x): "It aims to provide a reasonably 
logical plan of systemic evolution and 
to indicate to man the part he must play 
as an atomic unit in a great and 
corporate whole."


Evidently, then, Mrs. Bailey and the 
"Tibetan" consider the scheme of 
evolution offered in the Secret Doctrine 
as inadequate, and offer their own in 
its place. Apart from the difficulty 
of discovering anything "systemic" at 
all in Cosmic Fire, it is quite clear 
that the "Tibetan" (if he is really one) 
is not in agreement with the Trans-Himalayan 
Brotherhood. In that case one would 
infer from what is said in the Mahatma 
Letters that he may belong to the "Red 
Capped Brothers of the Shadow" (see 
Index under Dugpas). As K.H. says (p. 322): 
"the opposition represents enormous 
vested interests, and they have enthusiastic 
help from the Dugpas - in Bhutan and 
the Vatican!" Hence the Christian 
terminology that characterizes some of 
their efforts in the realm of Occultism.


- Alice Leighton Cleather 

- Basil Crump 

Peking, February, 1929 

---------------
<4b. Initiations of the Masters
Posted by: "Duane Carpenter"
monad_monad_monad@yahoo.com 
monad_monad_monad
Date: Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:50 am ((PST))

<Carlos
<If you want to get a quick reference to some of the
Theosophical 
Masters and their respective places in the Spiritual
Hierarchy and 
what 
initiations they have undergone go to
<Solar and Planetary Hierarchies - Chart
<If the chart doesn't come up go to the works of
Alice Bailey..............

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