Theos-Talk Archives (March 2007 Message tt00040)

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


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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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