Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt01415)

Mark
Theosophy stands for complete freedom of individual search and belief.
I have no problem with listening to what Alice Bailey had to say.
Cass

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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