Theos-Talk Archives (March 2007 Message tt00016)

   Here's another article on the Bailey scam-job.


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The O. E. Library Critic on Alice Bailey 

       The 0. E. Library Critic, edited by H.N. Stokes from August, 1911 through January, 1942 has volumes of material critical of the Leadbeater/Besant brand of make-believe Theosophy and the latter's various antics, and so this writer was curious as to what Stokes had to say about Alice Bailey's writings - since they both belong to the same realm of imitators of original Theosophy. Surprisingly, after a search through the Critic, almost nothing was found, likely because debunking one whole school of thought - "Neo-theosophy" - was enough to keep any editor busy.
         

Stokes' approach to Theosophy was nearly opposite of that of G. de Purucker (while also an editor and not a Theosophical teacher or leader as GdeP was.) Stokes was thoroughly critical while GdeP was predominantly positive and non-critical in approach. In this light one might expect GdeP to be somewhat antagonistic to Stokes and his approach, but in GdeP's Questions We All Ask we find the following:
         

"The 0. E. Library Critic, an interesting periodical edited and published by the Theosophical modern Juvenal or satirist, Dr. H. N. Stokes of Washington, D.C., a man of trenchant wit, whose favorite occupation in life seems to be pricking bubbles of fantasy and bursting bladders of pretension and perforating shams." (Vol. I, p. 144)
        

Stokes actually sold Bailey books, as well as some of Leadbeater and Besant "for purposes of comparison." Only one full article on Bailey, or an article from The Beacon: Fear, A World Problem appears in the Critic (Jan., 1932). It is mostly a philosophic essay not related to Bailey. Related to Bailey in the July, 1926 "Critic" in Stokes "At The Periscope" column, we find:
       

"Too Many Masters. An editorial in The Path (Sydney) for March-April on the Masters says: 'Today, fifty years after, we are in the position of having too many of these same Wise Men!" After referring to the Masters mentioned by Lazenby, Leadbeater, van Hook, Mrs. Alice Bailey and others the writer continues: 'To the student of the occult the difficulty is no longer to find the Masters, it is to escape from them.' To this might be added that we not only have too many Masters, but too many of the same Master. Every now and then I discover a new Morya, while one K.H. busies himself with attacking the church and another defends it. The craze for new Masters is a phase of the Messiah craze, apparently. Those who won't take the trouble to study the sayings of Krishna, Buddha and Christ are looking for a New Teacher, while the disciples of the polymorphose Mahatmas of today are just the ones who ignore or disparage the Mahatma Letters."
       

The Longest Critic piece directly related to Bailey appears in Stokes' At The Periscope in the May, 1929 number:
        

"H.P.B. and A.A.B. - Attention is called to a pamphlet just published under the auspices of 'The H.P.B. Defense Committee' of The Blavatsky Association on The Pseudo-Occultism of Mrs. A. Bailey by Mrs. A. L. Cleather and Basil Crump, two well-known defenders of H.P.B. and of her teachings as given in The Secret Doctrine. From the standpoint of comicality I have always placed Mrs. Bailey's books, Initiation, Human and Solar and A Treatise on Cosmic Fire side by side with Besant and Leadbeater's Man: Whence, How and Whither. As exponents of a twisted universe they beat Einstein. I have no more use for Mrs. Bailey's "Tibetan" than for the various "Masters" who send down communications through Annie Besant, C.W. Leadbeater, Brother XXII, the Temple of the People and others. (Ditto, Ditto - Proto) The woods are literally full of "mahatmas" who regale their believers with talk of varying degrees of insipidity and imbecility, communicated through psychic means of one sort or
 another, and some of who would almost seem to be operating from a fourth grade of a public school, or even from a madhouse. Further there are 'H.P. Blavatskys' galore, also communicating through psychic means. One does not question the sincerity of those who give these purported teachings to the world. Doubtless some of what they give is helpful, even as cold mush is to a starving man. But one could wish that these various 'Mahatmas' and 'Blavatskys' could be brought together into one room and set to comparing notes. There would be little left in the end but bones and feathers, unless a gentleman's agreement could be entered into permitting each to pull the legs of his devotees in his peculiar fashion. I know one H.P.B. who demonstrates her identity by swearing;  most of the Mahatmas talk sentimental tommyrot, couched in archaic English. Mrs. Bailey's Tibetan has a scheme which would have shamed Jehovah. Whether her Cosmic Fire is a confirmation and amplification of The
 Secret Doctrine, or whether it is filled with glaring contradictions and absurdities, with high-sounding phrases with no idea back of them, based upon a self-assumed authority, the readers of The Pseudo-Occultism of Mrs. A. Bailey must judge for themselves. It is well worth reading."
        

The only other significant piece I could find on Bailey in the Oriental Esoteric Library Critic was in the December, 1939 issue:
        

" Mrs. Bailey's 'Tibetan' on the 'Spirit of Peace'  - In a document issued from the Bailey Headquarters in New York and dated November, 1939, 'The Tibetan' implores all peace-loving persons to get together in spirit on Christmas day and on January 21st, 1940, to appeal to 'The Spirit of Peace' and invoke it (or Him?) to spread abroad. 'The Tibetan' tells us that 'The Spirit of Peace is hovering close to humanity, seeking opportunity to make His Presence felt. The Spirit of Peace is not an abstract concept but a potent Individual, wielding forces hithererto unfamiliar to our planet.' Apparently he won't wield them unless begged to do so. This reminds me of Ballard's 'Goddess of Liberty' who, so he informed his hearers, is not an 'abstract concept', but a real female woman who he produced at some of his meetings, albeit in invisible form. Apparently the 'Tibetan's' Spirit of Peace is a huge Man who can be induced to spread himself abroad, but only if urgently begged to do so
 on certain dates and by enough people. Between the Tibetan's Spirit of Peace and Ballard's Goddess of Liberty I see but little choice as to probability, but I am disposed to favor the latter. I want Liberty at the expense of Peace if necessary, but certainly not Peace at the expense of Liberty, which seems to be what this 'Tibetan' is aiming at."
        

This writer has admittedly read little of Bailey, and whenever he has attempted to do so has been beset by a certain nausea, which he thinks is a reaction to "BS" produced by a previous saturation with healthy Blavatsky material and the resultant purification of his gurdjieffian "philosophic center". The total lack of consistency and the emotional nature of the Bailey writings benumbs the intellect and hypnotizes. The Bailey material, in this writer's conviction, is the result of some clever and nasty astral types who have worked up a powerbase and huge herd of benumbed sheep. It is "left hand" occultism of a low type (in the "sheep" at least), and within the same influence as ritualistic religion and the "star-rishi" yogic path - or that of the "Mamo Chohans" half of things (see the MLs) - in distinction to the "Right Hand Path" of white occultism, which aspires to the Dhyan Chohans.
        

If people want to be Bailey-ites, that is just peachy-keen fine with this editor, but to place it (Bailey material) side by side with Blavatsky material and see it as consistent with it or complimentary requires warping the mental faculties and total lack of intuition. To compare Bailey side by side with Blavatsky is difficult because Bailey has coined a whole new terminology. Bailey-ites maintain that the "D.K." of their literature is the same Djual Khool of the Mahatma Letters. That this is claimed is no proof in itself and one would have to compare their philosophies for evidence. Bailey-ites claim that their philosophy comes from the same source of White adepts as were behind Blavatsky. If so, why would a completely different system and terminology be coined, which only adds to confusion rather than being an aid. Those main figures of the early Theosophical Movement for which there is most evidence of chelahood of some degree - Blavatsky, Olcott, Judge, Subba Row,
 Tingley, Crosby, Purucker - all stick to pretty much the same terminology and system of thought - all are largely consistent with each other (With perhaps some differences of interpretation as between Blavatsky and Subba Row). If D.K. was a chela of one of the same adepts that presented Blavatsky's system of Theosophy, then he would be presenting this same system as taught by his Master, and not the hocus-pocus found in Bailey.
        

Blavatsky's writings are full of scholarship, quotations, references to the great religious, scientific, occult and philosophic thinkers, studies of myth, philology, etc., etc. There's a couple of thousand pages of this in the Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled alone, not to mention her Collected Writings of fourteen volumes -which all took a tremendous degree of work and critical thinking by somebody. Is there a drop of scholarship in the channeled Bailey writings?
      

Is there any genuine positive evidence at all that the Bailey writings are compatible or an extension of Blavatsky Theosophy? The case is much that of the con-artist claiming royal heritage.

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