Theosophy
and the Unity of the World Religions

by Zachary Lansdowne

*A talk given at the 2004 Conference of the Seven Ray Institute and the University of the Seven Rays.

Good morning. My topic today is “Theosophy and the Unity of the World Religions.” Theosophy from the Greek means “divine wisdom.”  The name theosophy dates from the third century of our era and began with the eclectic Theosophical School in Alexandria whose purpose was to reconcile all religions under a common system of ethics based on eternal verities.  The modern Theosophical Society was founded in New York City in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky whose writings proclaim that all great religions have an origin in common.  Thus both the ancient and modern Theosophical societies were concerned with the unity of religions.

In this talk I will discuss the relationship between Theosophy and the Theosophical Society and the leading roles that both are expected to play during the 21st century.  But before I start off with my predictions, I want to give you Blavatsky’s predictions. My basic approach in predicting the future is to extrapolate the trends of the past and to build upon the predictions that Blavatsky herself made for the 20th century.  She made those predictions in 1889, which was 14 years after the founding of the Theosophical Society and two years before her death in 1891.  In The Key to Theosophy, which was first printed in 1889, Blavatsky responded to the question, “What do you expect for Theosophy in the future?” She answered, “If you speak of theosophy I answer that as it has existed eternally through the endless cycles upon cycles of the past so it will exist throughout the infinitudes of the future because theosophy is synonymous with everlasting truth.”  Thus Blavatsky was making an important distinction between theosophy and the Theosophical Society.  Theosophy is eternal but the Theosophical Society is temporal; theosophy will always exist but the Theosophical Society may not.  Other synonyms for theosophy are the Ageless Wisdom, the Perennial Philosophy, the eternal Plan and the universal curriculum. 

Blavatsky was not as hopeful, however, with respect to the prospects of the Theosophical Society.  In The Key to Theosophy she wrote, “Its future depends almost entirely upon the degree of selflessness, earnestness and wisdom possessed by those members on whom it will fall to carry on the work and to direct the Society after the death of its founders.”  Blavatsky saw two possible outcomes for the Theosophical Society—on the one hand she described its possible failure, “Every possible attempt such as the Theosophical Society has hitherto ended in failure because sooner or later it has degenerated into a sect, set up hard and fast dogmas of its own, and so, lost by imperceptible degrees that vitality which living truth alone can impart. The result can only be that the society will drift off to some sandbank of thought or another and there remain a stranded carcass to molder and die.”  That is a very vivid image—“a stranded carcass to molder and die” but what if the aforementioned danger could be averted.  In this case, Blavatsky predicted, “then the Society will live on into and through the 20th century.  It will gradually leaven and permeate the great mass of thinking and intelligent people.  Slowly but surely it will burst asunder the iron fetters of creeds and dogmas, of social and caste prejudices. It will open the way to the practical realization of the brotherhood of all men.” 

So Blavatsky, in 1889, made two quite different predictions for the Theosophical Society in the twentieth century.  She said that it might set up hard and fast dogmas and then become a stranded carcass to molder and die, or it might help to burst asunder the fetters of creeds and dogmas, of social and caste prejudices and of racial barriers.  Which outcome has occurred?  It seems to be that a mixture of both outcomes has occurred.  The original Theosophical Society that Blavatsky founded has splintered into many independent societies. For example, the Theosophical Society Adyar, the Theosophical Society Pasadena, United Lodge of Theosophists, Theosophical Society Denmark, Theosophical Society Canada, The Edmonton Theosophical Society, and the Theosophical Society in Boston, with which I am affiliated--all are completely independent organizations.  Several of these societies have done what Blavatsky warned against, namely, turned her own writings into a hard and fast dogma.  In my opinion, this imposition of a hard and fast dogma explains why most of the splintering has occurred and also explains why some of these Theosophical Societies are experiencing a long-term decline in membership.  On the other hand, the original Theosophical Society that Blavatsky founded has been successful in that it has helped to burst asunder iron fetters of creeds and dogmas.  Many of the ideas that Blavatsky introduced in the 19th century have become widely accepted now at the beginning of the 21st century.  I will come back to this last point in a few minutes.

Even though I am discussing events in the past and predictions for the future, I would like to make this information practical so that we can apply it to our daily lives. It seems to me that if we just listen to a lot of information without making it practical, then we are using that information as a distraction and a waste of time. I think that the history of the Theosophical Society for the last 125 years can be an extraordinary teaching example. Blavatsky tried to establish a society in which its members would overcome the fetters of creeds and dogmas among themselves and then would burst those fetters for everyone else. Yet past Theosophists, in spite of Blavatsky’s clear intentions and warnings, have used her writings in a sectarian way.  That is, they have used Blavatsky’s writings to create new creeds and dogmas that have separated them from other Theosophists, and from everyone else. And so the Theosophical movement has atrophied and splintered into all of these smaller societies. 

What should we do about ourselves? We’re all studying some spiritual teaching or another but are we using those teachings to break down our own mental barriers that separate us from other people? Or are we using those teachings to erect new mental barriers?  We might think that we are more special or advanced than other people because our doctrines are somehow more mystical, esoteric or occult than other doctrines.  Such a judgment is the kind of mistake that Theosophists made during the past century and perhaps we can learn from their example. Thus, consistent with past experience and with Blavatsky’s predictions, my first prediction is that those Theosophical societies that have turned Blavatsky’s teachings into a hard and fast dogma will continue to lose members and will seem increasingly irrelevant as we move into the 21st century.  But those Theosophical Societies that do not have a hard and fast dogma will at least have the possibility of growing and prospering during the coming era.

Next I am going to talk about the nature of Theosophy.  In her book The Secret Doctrine Blavatsky stated, “Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its outward human garments and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every other great religion.” Blavatsky used the term Theosophy to denote the root that she felt was common to all great religions.  Thus, one key characteristic of Theosophy, or of divine wisdom, is that it underlies all inspired religions and philosophies. The wisdom of Solomon, which is a book found in the Catholic canon of the Bible but omitted from the Protestant canon, also has the notion that divine wisdom underlies inspiration.  “I learn both what is secret and what is manifest for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me. For wisdom is more mobile than any motion. Because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things. For she is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty. Though she be but one, she can do all things. And while remaining in herself, she renews all things and in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets.”

Another key characteristic of Theosophy is that it is ineffable.  For example, Blavatsky wrote, “We can have it only approximately.” A similar notion can be found in Mahayana Buddhism. One of the most important texts of the Mahayana tradition is The Diamond Sutra which is believed to have been composed between 300-500 A.D.  A passage from this sutra states, “The truth is ungraspable and inexpressible.”  Another passage says, “In the teaching of the dharma there is no dharma that can be pointed to as dharma.”  The point is that Theosophy, or the dharma, is a wisdom beyond words--a truth that can only be intuited. Thus, in the Buddhist view, no verbal teaching should be set off as a hard and fast dogma. Instead, The Diamond Sutra states that a teaching should be likened unto a raft; in other words, a verbal teaching is simply a skillful means to bring us to the other shore--which is enlightenment but then it can be abandoned.  Consider the following analogy: we might think of a great underground river as representing Theosophy. Various wells are built to extract water from this underground river; these wells represent the Theosophical Society, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and other philosophies and religions. All these wells get their water from the same source but a bucket in each well is like a written doctrine because it contains only a limited part, or a fragment, of the water, not the entire underground river.

The notion that Theosophy itself cannot be expressed in words is a very practical idea for several reasons.  First we can understand how different philosophies and religions can share the same root of theosophy and can lead to a common experience of theosophy, even though they may have different doctrines. Second, we can use this doctrine to help liberate ourselves from being attached to our own spiritual teachings. By giving up attachment to our own teachings we can feel more united with other people, even with those who are involved with other teachings. And third, we can have the possibility of contacting theosophy itself which requires going beyond the limitations of words and thoughts.

As a basis for discussing how theosophy interacts with our world, I would like to mention some ideas expressed by Alice A. Bailey. Alice Bailey was once a member of the Theosophical Society Adyar but later left that organization to found her own school for spiritual development, the Arcane School in New York in 1923.  Prior to her death in 1949, Bailey published a series of books that she believed were based on information from the spiritual realm. In her book A Treatise on White Magic Bailey said, “Each generation now should produce its seers.  A seer is a person who can act as an intermediary between the fourth and fifth kingdoms of nature.” The first four kingdoms are the mineral, vegetable, animal and human. The fifth kingdom is sometimes called the spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of God, Hierarchy or Brotherhood, or the Masters of the Wisdom. It consists of the saints and sages of all religions who are graduated from the human school of evolution.  Alice Bailey, in another book, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. II, described three stages in the transmission of what she called, the eternal Plan, which I take as synonymous with theosophy.  In the first stage, members of the spiritual kingdom determine the immediate aspects that are to be presented to human beings. In the second stage, human seers receive those aspects as inspired ideas and then translate those ideas into their own words or thoughts, thereby converting those ideas into ideals.  In the third stage, intelligent aspirants carry the ideals into the masses of humanity.

Alice Bailey, in A Treatise on White Magic, also said, “All books are prison houses of ideas.”  The point here is that any translation of inspired ideas into ideals, involves making compromises.  Bailey said that all one can do is to grope for those feeble words that will somewhat clothe the idea. “As the words clothe the idea, they limit it.” And so any inspired writer will ultimately be guilty of creating new prisoners who ultimately will have to be released. Thus, any Theosophical book is twice removed from theosophy because it is only a verbal form of an aspect of divine wisdom. Here is an example: Blavatsky said that she wrote her books under inspiration. According to her she received inspired ideas from members of the spiritual kingdom and then translated those ideas into the words that form her books.  Thus, she is an example of an inspired seer.  Her books, however, contain limiting words that are somewhat ambiguous with associations that change over time and so they cannot contain everlasting truth. We might say that Blavatsky’s books represent one form that theosophy has taken but her books do not contain that eternal truth itself, but only an idealized, symbolic aspect of it.  Nevertheless, Theosophists who have turned Blavatsky’s writings into a hard and fast dogma have a different perspective. They consider Blavatsky’s writings to be Theosophy itself and so they judge the worth of all subsequent writers based upon how closely those writers adhere to her doctrines.  This perspective explains the so-called “Back to Blavatsky” movement—the antagonism that certain Theosophical Societies have for more modern writers and why the label pseudo-Theosophy is used to characterize more modern writings.

In the third stage, in which intelligent aspirants carry ideals into the mass of humanity, the distortions get worse. Writers at this stage receive only second hand inspiration. They are inspired by other writers who, in turn, are inspired by the spiritual kingdom. A book at this stage could be said to be at least three times removed from Theosophy because it is only an interpretation of a verbal form of an aspect of divine wisdom. Thus, it is not surprising that popular philosophical or religious books often have serious distortions. Alice Bailey, in Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, commented upon the distortions that have occurred within the presentations of the Theosophical Society.  She wrote, “When the new presentation of the occult teachings made its appearance through the inspired activity of H.P.B., a number of Theosophical members presented the occult teaching in such a manner that travestied the true teaching and outraged the intellectual perception of the mass of inquiring and intelligent men.”

Bailey gave three examples of distortions within Theosophical literature:  The first example is concerned with reincarnation.  “The occultists of the world through the Theosophical societies and other occult bodies, so called, have greatly damaged the presentation of the truth anent reincarnation through the unnecessary, unimportant, inaccurate and purely speculative details which they give out as truths anent the processes of death and the circumstances of man after death.”  The second example is concerned with how the members of the spiritual kingdom are characterized. The Masters as portrayed in the Theosophical Society faintly resemble the reality; They are not as pictured.” The final example is concerned with initiation. “The pseudo-occultism and the futile efforts to ‘take an initiation’ (that undistinguished phrase which ignorant Theosophical teachers have coined to express a deep spiritual experience) have been distinctive of the esoteric teaching ever since its modern inception in 1875.”  Consequently, books that popularize various philosophies and religions often disagree with each other because their words are at least three times removed from theosophy.  Even books by inspired seers disagree with each other because their words are still twice removed from theosophy. Thus if we want to find disagreements we will be successful wherever we want to look.  Many people spend their lives looking for disagreements. But instead, if we want to find unity, what can we do?

Bailey spoke of a definite and sustained effort to sense the presence in all presentations of truth. This effort is part of what she called “The Technique of the Presence” and it is also part of what she called Agni Yoga or, the Yoga of Fire, which is said to open the door to the higher initiations. The point is that we have a choice whenever we encounter some philosophical or religious doctrine. Either we can use our intellect to identify and focus on all the differences and errors that we can find or we can unfold our intuition and discern how this doctrine is another expression of theosophy or divine wisdom. 

Next I want to talk about Theosophy in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Although the various Theosophical Societies are relatively small, they are progenitors of many other spiritual organizations. I’ve already mentioned Alice Bailey who left a Theosophical Society to found the Arcane School.  Rudolf Steiner was another member of the Theosophical Society and he left to found the Anthroposophical Society and the Waldorf school system which have become world-wide activities. Jiddhu Krishnamurti, a popular religious philosopher and teacher, also left the Theosophical Society and founded several foundations and schools in India, Europe, and North America. The foregoing is only a partial list and so the various Theosophical Societies have had a much greater impact upon human consciousness than would be indicated by their present small sizes.  I believe that all the people I’ve just mentioned were theosophists in both the narrow and broad sense. They were Theosophists in a narrow sense because they had all been members of a Theosophical Society. But they were also theosophists in a broader sense because they were seers who brought forth new forms of theosophy to humanity.  Blavatsky also accepted this broader definition of being a theosophist because she wrote, “Every great thinker and philosopher, every founder of a new religion or school of philosophy or a sect is necessarily a theosophist.” 

In my opinion there were inspired seers in the twentieth century who were theosophists in this broader sense, even though they did not have any contact with any Theosophical Society.  Joel S. Goldsmith was a Christian mystic and influential writer of more than thirty books. He came out of the Christian Science tradition and completed his first book, The Infinite Way, in 1946. Helen Shuckman was responsible for bringing A Course in Miracles to the world.  The course was copyrighted in 1975 and has become quite popular--selling more than 1.5 million copies since then.  Helen Shuckman, however, did not claim to be its author. She said she received the course through an inner process of dictation. Joel S. Goldsmith and Helen Shuckman, as far as I know, never had any contact with any Theosophical Society. Nevertheless, I believe that both Goldsmith and Shuckman were theosophists in this broader sense in that they were both seers who brought forth new forms of theosophy to humanity.

As shown by this list, many inspired seers have appeared during the twentieth century and yet the written doctrines of these seers are all different—different with respect to theology, practices, terminology or emphasis.  Nevertheless, we can still say that these doctrines represent different forms that theosophy has taken if their writers did receive inspired ideas that embodied various aspects of theosophy.  Even though all verbal formulations of theosophy are false because they are prison houses of ideas, some may be more helpful than others to leading us to the actual experience of theosophy.  But once enlightened, we can abandon the particular forms of theosophy that we have used to get there because we will be in contact with theosophy itself--not just idealized, symbolic aspects of it.  I agree with Blavatsky when she says that theosophy will always exist and I also agree with Bailey when she says that each generation now should produce its seers.  So my second prediction is that new and inspired seers will appear during the twentieth century. The new seers may not have any connection with any currently organized Theosophical Society but we may expect that they will bring forth new forms of theosophy to help educate and illumine humanity throughout the coming era.

Next I would like to discuss one area in which various Theosophical Societies have had an important role in the past and, in my opinion, will continue to have an important role in the future. That area is in the bursting of iron fetters of creeds and dogmas. Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society so that it would have three fundamental objects. When expressed in present day American English those objects are—to form a nucleus of universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color; to encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy and science; to investigate the unexplored laws of nature and the powers latent to humanity. 

Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society was perhaps the first organization to bring concepts of Eastern religion to the West such as meditation, karma and reincarnation. Theosophists gave lectures on these subjects in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century--long before the various gurus and the various Tibetans came in the twentieth century. Theosophists emphasized the underlying unity that is revealed through the comparative study of philosophy and religion. Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society so that it would be non-sectarian. In The Key to Theosophy she wrote, “No officer of the Society, in his capacity as an officer, has the right to preach his own sectarian views and beliefs to members assembled.  For example, the officers should not say that Hinduism is better than Christianity or vice versa.”  Rather, Blavatsky said that all the great religions have the same route and she supported the freedom of T.S. members to find the teachings that would work best for them.

Now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the notion of inter-faith respect has pervaded human consciousness.  For example, I live in Arlington, Massachusetts and each year the town of Arlington sponsors an interfaith prayer breakfast that brings together the leaders of various faith communities. The Arlington faith communities include:  Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Theosophists, Moslems, Bahais and even Zoroastrians. These prayer breakfasts support the notion that all the various faith communities have a spiritual richness that should be honored and valued.

As another example of this inter-faith movement, consider the United Religions Initiative which began as a vision in 1995 and then became a world-wide organization. The URI charter, which was signed in 2000, states in part, “We the people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions throughout the world hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation; to end religiously motivated violence; and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the earth and all living beings. We respect the uniqueness of each tradition and differences of practice or belief. We value voices that respect others and believe that sharing our values and wisdom can lead us to act for the good of all. We believe that our religions, spiritual lives, rather than dividing us, guide us to build community and respect for one another.” URI sponsors such activities as inter-faith peace building and visions for peace among religions and inter-faith education. It is estimated that over one million people in over sixty countries have participated in URI activities and the URI has become an official non-governmental organization affiliated with the United Nations. In my opinion, it is now accomplishing what Blavatsky’s original Theosophical Society might have accomplished if parts of it hadn’t become dogmatic and sectarian.  On the other hand, the Theosophical Society could be thought of as a precursor of and an enabler for the URI because Theosophical activities during the past 125 years have helped to prepare the way for URI and similar organizations.

My third and final prediction is that these trends, which the Theosophical Society in 1875 helped to launch, will have an increasing impact during the 21st century.  There will be growing ecumenical movements that encourage inter-faith cooperation, increased efforts to unify existing denominations and also a new world religion formed as the essence of existing faiths. In this way, the various Theosophical Societies will continue to help to burst asunder fetters and creeds and dogmas—both directly through their own activities and indirectly through the many organizations for which they have helped to prepare the way.  Bursting these fetters is an important effort because it will eliminate a source of conflict which has divided human beings for centuries.  During the twentieth century, for example, religious wars have been fought in Europe, Asia, and Africa. We can all help in this effort; let’s give up our own sectarian judgments that separate us from other people; let’s give up any pride and attachment we might have for our own doctrines. If we can develop a sense of synthesis within ourselves, than we can uplift human consciousness and help create a new, universal spirituality.

Q:  I have a brother that is a fundamentalist minister and he believes and argues with me that anything outside the Protestant bible is blasphemy.  Is there a way to resolve the disagreements I have with him?

A:  It turns out I have a day job—I am an engineer during the day and I work at an engineering company in Massachusetts and, for at least twelve years, I have participated during the Thursday noon hour in a Bible study with Christian fundamentalists. I have been one of the longest standing members of this thing and everyone else in this group is fundamentalist Christian. And, as a Theosophist, my point of view is that there is tremendous wisdom and inspiration in the Bible and I would be just as happy attending a Bible study group as I would studying Buddhism or the Bhagavad Gita or Alice Bailey—it makes no difference. As a Theosophist, I see divine wisdom in all of these things and I get along just fine with them and they are happy to see me and I am happy to see them.  And when I first started with them I had a lot of judgment within myself because I was thinking--well, you know they have all these peculiar beliefs and I am much more enlightened because I believe in reincarnation and they don’t. And they believe the Bible is the only way and I believe there are these other things. But, over time, I began to appreciate their wisdom and their spiritual practice. I appreciate the fact that they have caught hold of the desire to transform themselves. They study the Bible all the time, they keep the words of the Bible at hand and I learn from them and I don’t argue with them.

Now, my point of view is that when we are dealing with people who disagree with us we can be practitioners of what Alice Bailey calls “white magic”, we can be white magicians. And that is, we can look past the words and verbal discussion and perceive that within the individual there is the soul, there is the presence of God and we don’t have to get caught up in arguing with them. We can just see within them the presence of God and we can be white magicians and radiatory healers. That’s what Alice Bailey talks about—to help awaken the people to their own soul so that they can begin to express wisdom. So, often times during these Bible sessions people say things that I disagree with and I say things that they disagree with but we are united by this common appreciation of the truth of Christianity and rather than arguing with them I try to be a white magician and perceive the soul within them and perceive us all and try to bring about an atmosphere of harmony. And so, from their perspective, I fit right in. Does that make sense?

Q:  As a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity in southern Georgia in the Bible belt it got rather boring so I started attending the Bible sessions and I found that an appropriate point was always presented for me to be able to put in, tactfully, some of the Bailey teachings. And I found that each time I did that the people in the Bible class agreed completely and they were thrilled and would approach me after the meeting and ask me to elaborate on some of this and a couple even asked for the books. So if it is possible to attend these classes, and there is a way to diplomatically get these ideas across. 

A: What I’ve found is that there are a lot of truths in the Bible but the fundamentalist Christians interpret these predictions as referring to the future--they are very future oriented. And so there are many promises in the Bible of joy and heaven and happiness and so forth but they interpret it as either referring to events that will occur once they die and go to heaven or as referring to the time when Jesus comes. I always try to give them a sort of here and now interpretation of joy and peace and love that is promised us—right now we can experience the wisdom and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. So I agree with what the Bible says but in my participation in these meetings I give sort of a here and now interpretation of these promises; they are meant to be filled by us right now, in this life, not just when we go to heaven after we die or whenever Jesus comes back, whenever that is.

Q: You talked about material that is coming out today that is second and third generation. When do you perceive that that shift towards this new world religion is going to occur?

A: That’s a good question. One of the magazines I subscribe to is called What is Enlightenment? and it focuses upon the process of enlightenment and it doesn’t really matter whether one is studying Buddhism, or Hinduism or Christian enlightenment. They have this notion that there is a process of enlightenment that is common to all these different traditions and, in any given issue, you can read about Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist practitioners. From my point of view, this might be an example of how the new world religion might come about. This magazine has come out and identified the essence of these different religions which provide a process towards enlightenment. They have the feeling that whatever the different religions say about their own process can be helpful and inspiring to other religions. People who read this magazine don’t necessarily identify themselves with any one specific religion or another but can feel free to gain the wisdom and clarity of them all. So, in my way of thinking, the magazine What is Enlightenment? is, in a sense, a non-sectarian magazine because it pulls in different religions and philosophies but it focuses upon the essence of each one—which is the process of enlightenment. From my point of view, that might be an example of how we are moving towards this new world religion because we are told that it will sort of be a synthesis of existing religions and that’s an example of such a synthesis.  We can already see how some groups and some magazines are attempting to see the essence of different religions while affirming and appreciating their differences.

Q:  This is a comment to the earlier question about talking to people who have fundamentalist views. I was in the bookstore the other day and someone asked me, “What do you believe?”  And I started to enter the conversation and realized that this was not going to be a very good topic and so I said, “Let’s talk about love”.  And there is something about love, thinking about it and talking about it, that creates a commonality of shared concern and participation in something larger. So I just wanted to put out that while it is difficult on the doctrinal side to deal with people with fixed beliefs, love is something that always helps.

I really appreciated your comments on the URI which has come up again and again throughout our conference here and also what you were saying about the magazine. Are there any other examples of things that have moved you as far as anticipating this movement towards a universal spirituality? 

A:  Well maybe I will advertise my own workshop this afternoon. I am giving a workshop on the Book of Revelations and the full title of my workshop is”The Book of Revelations: a Scripture for the New World Religion” and so, that’s a claim. I am arguing that the Book of Revelations  is a scripture for the new world religion and I will try to argue for that claim and maybe those who attend that workshop will walk out thinking that yes indeed it is a scripture for the new world religion. But both Blavatsky and Edgar Cayce pointed out that the Book of Revelations should be interpreted as a sort of symbolic or allegorical description of the process of initiation. If you study the Book of Revelations in this way you will see that it integrates different religious and philosophical practices. You can see that elements of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and the chakras are in there. Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda interpreted the seven churches that played a prominent role in the Book of Revelations as the seven chakras. I also will claim that you can find in the Book of Revelations the process of invocation and evocation that Bailey says will characterize the new world religion. And you will also see the process of initiation and the synthesis of different religious perspectives that Bailey said will characterize the new world religion. So this is interesting because the Book of Revelations has sort of been a secret for 2,000 years, ever since it was published. But I am making the claim that during the coming era that the Book of Revelations will be properly interpreted and viewed as a Scripture for the new world religion. Anyway, that’s what I’m claiming this afternoon for those that are interested.

Q:  Has anyone done a complete history of all these fragmented splinters and what happened to them so that the teaching itself, of how these societies have historically progressed, can be a lesson for the new world religion? And has there been any sort of attempt to synthesize all of this information the same way as the Bailey teachings have come out on CD-Rom so that you can search them—has there been any attempt to do that with the Secret Doctrine to make it more user friendly in the information age?

A:  Well The Secret Doctrine and all of Blavatsky’s writings are available on a CD-Rom. There have been attempts to come up with histories of the Theosophical Society but they tend to be written by one of the societies to defend why they split from the others and to defend their point of view.  My own organization, The Theosophical Society of Boston, we were part of the Theosophical Society which, in turn, is part of the Theosophical Society Adyar up until around 1990. At that time we had a rather bitter lawsuit and so it is only within the last ten years that we have become independent. And although that occurred only ten years ago there are now arguments as to how the split occurred; it has been hard for me to pin down exactly the reasons. It’s almost unbelievable, here you have an organization, the Theosophical Society, that is supposedly in favor of freedom of thought and encourages the study of different points of view and one of its objects is universal humanity and the expression of love and yet we had this bitter lawsuit which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars going to lawyers’ fees and then the Theosophical Society of Boston splitting off with very little contact with other Theosophical Societies. And so it is hard for me to understand how this could have occurred.  So there have been histories but, by and large, they have been self-serving, sectarian histories—there hasn’t been an attempt to look at all the many splintered societies and try to understand why the different splinterings occurred. One of the issues as to why the Theosophical Society in Boston splintered is, I think, because of its interest in the Alice Bailey material. There is a lot of antagonism in the traditional Theosophical Societies against Alice Bailey and the Theosophical Society of Boston at that time, and today as well, holds classes and lectures on the Alice Bailey material and I think that was part of the reason there was antagonism towards us and why the Theosophical Society in Boston was forced to go its way. 

Q: I’d like to comment about two organizations that I see moving in this direction. There is one called World Network Religious Futurists and it’s about 15 or 16 years old now with leadership from roughly ten different world religions. They have made a network and have been communicating with all kinds of groups.  The second one is a Christian organization, The International Council of Community Churches, and our organization has been a part of it since the 1970’s.  They determined that a part of their organization would be actively inter-faith and we as “Light of Christ” and as “Sancta Sophia” are very active with it. We were the first esoteric organization that ICC accepted. And since that time 20% of the Council has had some interest in metaphysical or esoteric ideas and I believe that we have something to offer. It’s an interesting organization because, on one hand, there are many very narrow people in it and, on the other, there’s a very broad-minded group of people.  I nearly always offer some kind of workshop there and the same questions always come up that demonstrates how much interest there is even within persons with well-defined belief systems—they still want to hear something. I think that sort of testifies to the fact that we are all at a place where we are trying to have an expansion of consciousness. 

Q: One of the things that fascinate me in looking for signs of an emerging new world religion is also the breaking down of forms and I think we discount the enormity of this process that is ongoing among the masses of humanity. I look at things in a much wider view than just religion in the sense that the things that happen politically in the world are also an expression of theosophy. So, for instance, the very peaceful events that happened in Georgia where they disposed of the president there and got a new one, is an example of the underlying current of theosophy that pervades the world. The same thing happened in Taiwan recently where suddenly people in power, who were using it for selfish purposes, were no longer able to have their support base.

Contact Zachary Lansdowne at:
zackl@sprynet.com