Theos-Talk Archives (March 2009 Message tt00572)

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--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "danielhcaldwell" <danielhcaldwell@...> wrote:
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> In the book THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT 1875-1950 (pp. 293-294), one reads:
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>      A year and a half later [in the "Adyar Theosophist" (January, 1930), LI, 386-8], she [Annie Besant] published an article purporting to relate what went on in the councils of "the Hierarchy who are the real rulers of the world" on the occasion of deciding who the Messenger to the world would be. This account, which Mrs. Besant explained had been "sent" to her, runs in part: 
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>     The question seems to have been as to whether use should be made of H.P.B. or of Annie Besant. . . . The use of H.P.B. would involve the accentuation of the occult side, and a sharp conflict with Materialism. The use of Annie Besant would involve the accentuation of the Brotherhood side generally, with little conflict, at that time, with the materialistic attitude. H.P.B. was immediately available. Annie Besant would not be available so early. Hence the Society, if she were to be the principal medium, could only be founded many years later, instead of in 1875. Some of the Elder Brethren were frankly anxious about the stressing of the occult side. . . 
>     H.P.B. was . . . no less heroic than the one who would be her great successor, . . . She was an admirable channel for the Masters, and entirely selfless ? utterly Their servant, no less than Annie Besant. 
>     In any case, the need of the world was urgent. Would it be safe to wait until 1891, with the advent of a world-catastrophe (1914-1918) in prospect? On the other hand, would it be wise to wait in view of the urgent need for the preparation of the world to receive its Lord in the first half of the twentieth century? 
>  . . Herein lay a risk, a risk that would not have been taken 
>  . . but for the guarantee offered by our great Masters. . . . These two Great Ones offered to make Themselves personally responsible for an experiment both dangerous and desirable. They would watch over it with the utmost care and guard by all means in Their power against the development of the occult side into those terrible exaggerations which in the past have led to such great disasters. 
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>      Anyone who digs through the files of the Theosophist for almost any year since Olcott's death will find sufficient material of this sort to convict Mrs. Besant of either unconscionable deception or a "spiritual" vanity which carried her far beyond the bounds of sanity, to the point where she was able to believe what she said about herself. "Materialism" is spoken of in the above "communications," but surely, an honestly doubting materialism of the "scientific" sort would have been much more desirable than the psychic maunderings which have passed under the name of "Theosophy" in Mrs. Besant's society for nearly half a century. The "materialism" of the modern world has at least been a protection for the many against the sentimental nonsense to which the Theosophical Society descended under Mrs. Besant's tutelage. 
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> Daniel
> http://hpb.cc
>