Theos-Talk Archives (July 2007 Message tt00154)

Was Alice Bailey 
"the New Torch-Bearer of Truth"?
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Alice Bailey claimed that "her teachings came from the same Occult 
Brotherhood that taught HP Blavatsky . . . . Bailey's guide professed 
to be the same Djual Khool that was one of HPB's teachers. Bailey 
also declared that her guru was the same Master Koot Hoomi that 
Blavatsky knew." (1)

Many Bailey students have quoted the following passage from H.P.B.'s 
pen in supporting the claim that Alice Bailey was the expected new 
messenger of the Masters in the 20th century: 

"In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better 
fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and 
irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya; 
and that . . . the source of all religions and philosophies . . . has 
been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found." 
S.D., 1888, Vol I, p. xxxviii (original edition) 

Students might compare this 1888 statement with the following TWO 
passages from HPB's pen. 

The first extract was written in December 1888 and the second one 
dates from the middle of 1889. 

The first passage reads: 

"Let every member [of the Esoteric Section] know . . . that the time 
for such priceless acquisition is limited. The writer of the present 
is old; her life is well-nigh worn out, and she may be 
summoned 'home' any day and almost any hour. And if her place is even 
filled up, perchance by another worthier and more learned than 
herself, still there remain but twelve years to the last hour of the 
term - namely, till December the 31st, 1899. Those who will not have 
profited by the opportunity (given to the world in every last quarter 
of a century), those who will not have reached a certain point of 
psychic and spiritual development, or that point from which begins 
the cycle of adeptship, by that day - those will advance no further 
than the knowledge already acquired. No Master of Wisdom from the 
East will appear or send any one to Europe or America after that 
period, and the sluggards will have to renounce every chance of 
advancement in their present incarnation - until the year 1975. Such 
is the LAW, for we are in Kali Yuga - the Black Age - and the 
restrictions in this cycle, the first 5,000 years of which will 
expire in 1897, are great and almost insuperable." HPB's Collected 
Writings, Vol XII, pp. 491-492. 

The second passage is as follows: 

". . .during the last quarter of every hundred years an attempt is 
made by those 'Masters' . . . to help on the spiritual progress of 
Humanity in a marked and definite way. Towards the close of each 
century you will invariably find that an outpouring or upheaval of 
spirituality - or call it mysticism if you prefer - has taken place. 
Some one or more persons have appeared in the world as their agents, 
and a greater or less amount of occult knowledge and teaching has 
been given out . . . . .If the present attempt, in the form of our 
Society, succeeds better than its predecessors have done, then it 
will be in existence as an organized, living and healthy body when 
the time comes for the effort of the XXth century. The general 
condition of men's minds and hearts will have been improved and 
purified by the spread of its teachings . . . . but besides a large 
and accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will 
find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new 
torch-bearer of Truth. He will find the minds of men prepared for his 
message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths 
he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival . . . ." The Key to 
Theosophy, pp. 306-7.  

The three passages TAKEN TOGETHER indicate that HPB was referring to 
an emissary of the Masters coming in 1975 or later. These statements 
by HPB would seem to rule out the messenger being Alice Bailey.

Would any other claimant found in the list at

http://blavatskyarchives.com/moderntheosophy.htm#Endnote

fit H.P.B.'s descriptions as given in her above 3 statements?

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Footnote (1)  "Theosophy's Shadow: A Critical Look at the Claims and 
Teachings of Alice A. Bailey" by Nicholas Weeks
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Daniel
http://hpb.cc