Theosophy Watch

BY THE close of the 19th Century, Theosophy had laid the ground plan for the “new age” we recognize today.

It was an unimpeachable call to altruism and the regeneration of mankind— exhorting both entrenched science and religion to end their combative ways — in a cooperation towards a higher synthesis.

Agnostic would be tutored by the Gnostic, Religion by Reason, Physics by Metaphysics. It was a time that tested the soul of things.

When H. P. Blavatsky wrote “Modern science believes not in the ’soul of things, and will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony,” she also pointed to initiated seers whose

“–flashing gaze…penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.”

“The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden days return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.”

- SHELLEY

The record of those “thousands of generations of Seers” survives today in the teachings of Theosophy— and in the fearless explorer-hearts of numerous frontier thinkers. For example, futurist philosopher Peter Russell:

From Science To God

Blavatsky asserted the fundamental principle upon which all the transcendent, soul-based sciences are rooted:

“The opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized.”

Spirit and matter are inseparable, Blavatsky asserted:

“Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are … to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.”

H. P. Blavatsky is the amanuensis of  occult wisdom, the preserver of the hidden spiritual life she knew to be inseparable from the material world— pointing towards an eternal, conscious and evolutionary soul within all  things.

One of her most memorable lines in the Preface to The Secret Doctrine reads:

The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not “a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,” and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe—

“[The occultist] maintains that Spirit and Matter are two FACETS of the unknowable UNITY,” she taught. The apparent differences between them were due, she said, to

” (a) the various degrees of differentiation of [matter], and (b) on the grades of consciousness attained by man himself.”

The Global Consciousness Project

Lynn McTaggart

Science researcher Lynn McTaggart writes in her Feb. 27, 2009 Living The Field newsletter: “Be sure not to miss The Living Matrix: The Science of Healing Conference at Kings College, London (March 13-16, 2009).”

“It includes the premier of The Living Matrix film, which I appear in, and at the conference I’ll be sharing my thoughts and research on how thoughts can influence the world around us, especially with healing. Following the conference, I’ll be leading a workshop entitled Living the Field.”

“A number of other leading international complementary health researchers, authors and practitioners, including my friends James Oschman (who has done so much research in energy medicine), Rollin McCraty of Heartmath Research fame, and the irrepressible healer Eric Pearl, will also be speaking at the conference and running workshops.”

Living The Field

“Living The Field is the only organization in the world to synthesize the discoveries of the very latest frontier science into a coherent theory and a program for modern integrated living.”

Science & Spirituality

The Occult Side of Nature

A dauntless advocate, Blavatsky approached the presentation of spiritual truths from many sides at once:

The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not “a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,” and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.

Psychic Ability (CNN)

Anderson Cooper segment on psychics including Russell Targ of CIA fame.

Material science was on the rise at the turn of the 19th century, gaining every day more legitimacy in the mind of humanity. Yet, Blavatsky was determined to make a case for the hidden planes of nature. True religion, she maintains, can never be incompatible with true science—thus she hoped to rescue the soul of each. The title of her seminal work The Secret Doctrine says as much: “A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy.”

A Review of “Unbelievable” – The Rhine Research Center

It’s a history of research into the question of whether we survive death, centered around J. B. and Louisa Rhine’s remarkable Parapsychology Laboratory. It’s a good read, almost like a novel, certainly not like a scholarly tome, but quite accurate. I was fascinated to get an overview of a period that was important in shaping my own career, filling in some blanks in my own knowledge, and recommend Unbelievable. -Charles T. Tart

Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena, from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory

Dean Radin: Taboos in Science

“Modern Science is ancient thought distorted, and no more,” Blavatsky wrote—emphasis modern. In this more enlightened time, we would agree even more with what she says next:

“We have seen, however, what intuitional scientists think, and are busy about… proofs of the fact that more than one … is unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.” – H. P. Blavatsky, (The Secret Doctrine 1:579)

Russell Targ: Remote Viewing

Charles T. Tart, elder statesman of parapsychology— a fearless investigator, and clearly one of those intuitional scientists — has written a new book titled “The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together,” available soon.

From the Publisher: “For fifty years, world-renowned transpersonal psychologist Charles Tart conducted scientific experiments at prestigious institutions such as Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, to explore the nature of paranormal phenomena. In The End of Materialism, Tart presents his findings and explains how the scientific and spiritual worlds can be reconciled.”

Blavatsky foresaw, with prophetic insight, the future, and the desolation which must inevitably follow the rejection of the shift towards spiritual unity of humanity. Her’s was an unshakable faith, yet her message was cautionary.

“Happy the optimist in whose heart the nightingale of hope can still sing, with all the iniquity and cold selfishness of the present age before his eyes!”, she exclaimed—followed immediately by what we still recognize: “Our century is a boastful age, as proud as it is hypocritical—as cruel as it is dissembling.”

Charles Tart: The Case of ESP

An Atheist’s Admission

One of the leading lights of scientific materialism, Richard Lewontin, is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. In Billions and Billions of Demons Lewontin admits to placing blind faith in materialism, while ignoring supernatural phenomena. He writes:

“We have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.”

And further admits:

“… we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.

“Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Militant atheists like Richard Dawkins (above), Hitchens and their followers, are also famously public in their disdain of the spiritual and sacred. And though H. P. Blavatsky was no fan of fundamentalist science, she revered unbiased truth above all, writing that

“…one need not necessarily recognize the existence of any special God or a deity.“

Dean Radin: Stubborn Taboos

Original Thinkers

“. . . . virtue in distress, and vice in triumph
Make atheists of mankind.”

-Dryden

According to Blavatsky, a true original thinker is one who is willing to abandon, she says, “the old and trodden highway of routine, and enters upon the solitary path of independent thought–Godward.” A Theosophist, she boldly states, is “an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth with ‘an inspiration of his own’ to solve the universal problems.”

We are disabused of any idea that students of Theosophy have special status: “One need but worship the spirit of living nature, and try to identify oneself with it. … all original thinkers and investigators of the hidden side of nature whether materialists —

“… those who find in matter ‘the promise and potency of all terrestrial life,’ or spiritualists— that is, those who discover in spirit the source of all energy and of matter as well, were and are, properly, Theosophists.”

For atheism Blavatsky reserves a special view (SD 1:279):- “The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the Hindu sense of the word nastika, or the rejection of idols, including every anthropomorphic god. In this sense every Occultist is a Nastika.”

“Theosophy prevailing in the struggle, its all-embracing philosophy strikes deep root into the minds and hearts of men,” she writes,

“… if its doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma, in other words, of Hope and Responsibility, find a home in the lives of the new generations, then, indeed, will dawn the day of joy and gladness for all who now suffer and are outcast.”

Life After Life

Documentary about scientific and phenomenological evidence:

The Golden Age

“For real Theosophy IS ALTRUISM, and we cannot repeat it too often. It is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to Truth. If once men do but realize that in these alone can true happiness be found, and never in wealth, possessions, or any selfish gratification, then the dark clouds will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon earth.

“Then, the GOLDEN AGE will be there, indeed. But if not, then the storm will burst, and our boasted western civilization and enlightenment will sink in such a sea of horror that its parallel History has never yet recorded.”

-H. P. Blavatsky, (Our Cycle & the Next)

“My friend, the golden age hath passed away,
Only the good have power to bring it back . . .”

“The Tidal Wave”

The tidal wave of deeper souls,
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares,
Out of all meaner cares.

-LONGFELLOW

“THE great psychic and spiritual change now taking place in the realm of the human Soul, is quite remarkable. It began towards the very commencement of the now slowly vanishing last quarter of our century, and will end— so says a mystic prophecy— either for the weal or the woe of civilized humanity with the present cycle which will close in 1897.” --H. P. Blavatsky

Face to Face with Carl Jung (1875-1961)

A rare interview with Dr. Carl Jung – pioneer of modern psychology.

“I stepped out of a mist…and I knew ‘I AM’…”

Awakening The Spirit in Man

H. P. Blavatsky

“We begin with instinct, we end with omniscience.”

- A. WILDER

“Verily the Spirit in man, so long hidden out of public sight, so carefully concealed and so far exiled from the arena of modern learning, has at last awakened. It now asserts itself and is loudly re-demanding its unrecognized yet ever legitimate rights. It refuses to be any longer trampled under the brutal foot of Materialism, speculated upon by the Churches, and made a fathomless source of income by those who have self-constituted themselves its universal custodians.

“The light and spirit of the Divinity are the wings of the soul.”

-PLATO

“[Materialism] would deny the Divine Presence any right to existence; the latter would accentuate and prove it through their Sidesmen and Church Wardens armed with money-bags and collection-boxes. But the Spirit in man–the direct, though now but broken ray and emanation of the Universal Spirit—has at last awakened.”

“Today,

the Spirit in man has returned like King Lear

… from seeming insanity to its senses — and, raising its voice, it now speaks in those authoritative tones to which the men of old have listened in reverential silence through incalculable ages, until deafened by the din and roar of civilization and culture, they could hear it no longer. . . .

“Look around you and behold! Think of what you see and hear, and draw therefrom your conclusions. The age of crass materialism, of Soul insanity and blindness, is swiftly passing away. A death struggle between Mysticism and Materialism is no longer at hand, but is already raging.”  -H. P. Blavatsky

“Science and The Taboo of Psi”

Dean Radin, PhD: Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS).

“So far hast thou come; but thou shalt go no further!”

“And the party which will win the day at this supreme hour will become the master of the situation and of the future—i.e., it will become the autocrat and sole disposer of the millions of men already born and to be born, up to the latter end of the XXth century.

“This is warranted us by the many brave and prolific authors and writers who have arisen of late to defend the rights of Spirit to reign over matter. Many are the honest, aspiring Souls now raising themselves like a dead wall against the torrent of the muddy waters of Materialism.”
-H. P. Blavatsky

“A New Age Approach With Very Old Origins”

“New York is a city where people of uncommon beliefs may collide. Such is the case with a group that convenes every week to discuss the meaning behind the philosophical work of Helena Petrovna.” (Lily Koppel, The New York Times, February 14, 2009)

“The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system…” -H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, 1:272-273

The Synthesis of Occult Science

“With the single exception of the writings of Plato, no one in modern times had given to the Western world any approximation to a complete philosophy, previous to the appearance of H. P. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. The writings of Plato are carefully veiled in the symbolical language of initiation.

“The Secret Doctrine, coming more than two millenniums later, and in an age of so-called Science, is addressed to the Scientific thought of the age, and hence considers the whole subject largely from the stand-point of Science. The present age is as deficient in philosophy as was the age of Plato in knowledge of science.

“It is just because analytical thought is in the ascendant, because it is the thought-form of the age, that the great majority of readers are likely to overlook the broad synthesis and so miss the philosophy of the Secret Doctrine.” -William Q. Judge

Physics, Metaphysics &
the Consciousness Connection

Thomas Campbell, Physicist

A More Perfect Union

“We are now in a transition period, and … there will be a revival of genuine philosophy … the Secret Doctrine will be the basis of the “New Philosophy.” Science today … already treads so close to the borders of occult philosophy that it will not be possible to prevent the new age from entering the occult realm.

“The Secret Doctrine points where the lines of evolution and involution meet—where matter and spirit clasp hands—and where the rising animal stands face to face with the fallen god—for all natures meet and mingle in man.”
-William Q. Judge, “The Synthesis of Occult Science”