VOL. 135 NO. 12 SEPTEMBER 2014
CONTENTS
On the Watch-Tower 3 Tim Boyd The Visionary World of Stockhausen 7 Alan Senior What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present 19 Nilda Venegas Bernal Ancient Egyptian Religions 22 Ketan Shah The Number Seven and our Society 30 H. P. Blavatsky Theosophical Work around the World 34 Index 38 International Directory 40
Editor: Mr Tim Boyd
NOTE: Articles for publication in The Theosophist should be sent to the Editorial Office. Cover: A Coppersmith Barbet enjoying fruits of the Adyar Gardens — A. Chandrasekaran
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1 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY Founded 17 November 1875 President: Mr Tim Boyd Vice-President: Dr Chittaranjan Satapathy Secretary: Ms Marja Artamaa Treasurer: Mr T. S. Jambunathan Headquarters: ADYAR, CHENNAI (MADRAS) 600 020, INDIA Vice-President: [email protected] Secretary: [email protected] Treasurer: [email protected] Adyar Library and Research Centre: [email protected] Theosophical Publishing House: [email protected] & [email protected] Editorial Office: [email protected] ♦ Website: http://www.ts-adyar.org
The Theosophical Society is composed of students, belonging to any religion in the world or to none, who are united by their approval of the Society’s Objects, by their wish to remove religious antagonisms and to draw together men of goodwill, whatsoever their religious opinions, and by their desire to study religious truths and to share the results of their studies with others. Their bond of union is not the profession of a common belief, but a common search and aspiration for Truth. They hold that Truth should be sought by study, by reflection, by purity of life, by devotion to high ideals, and they regard Truth as a prize to be striven for, not as a dogma to be imposed by authority. They consider that belief should be the result of individual study or intuition, and not its antecedent, and should rest on knowledge, not on assertion. They extend tolerance to all, even to the intolerant, not as a privilege they bestow but as a duty they perform, and they seek to remove ignorance, not punish it. They see every religion as an expression of the Divine Wisdom and prefer its study to its condemnation, and its practice to proselytism. Peace is their watchword, as Truth is their aim. Theosophy is the body of truths which forms the basis of all religions, and which cannot be claimed as the exclusive possession of any. It offers a philosophy which renders life intelligible, and which demonstrates the justice and the love which guide its evolution. It puts death in its rightful place, as a recurring incident in an endless life, opening the gateway to a fuller and more radiant existence. It restores to the world the Science of the Spirit, teaching man to know the Spirit as himself and the mind and body as his servants. It illuminates the scriptures and doctrines of religions by unveiling their hidden meanings, and thus justifying them at the bar of intelligence, as they are ever justified in the eyes of intuition. Members of the Theosophical Society study these truths, and theosophists endeavour to live them. Everyone willing to study, to be tolerant, to aim high, and to work perseveringly, is welcomed as a member, and it rests with the member to become a true theosophist.
2 The Theosophist On the Watch-Tower On the Watch-Tower
TIM BOYD
Convergence the professor. He was involved in some I have a clear memory from my early cutting-edge research around the Big- days at the university that occurred during Bang idea. During one class session I a class session. The school was notable asked our professor a question. I do not for the number of its Nobel Prize-winning remember exactly what that question was. professors. In addition to this stellar group What I do remember is that in the question there was also another tier of professors I used the word ‘why’. I suppose that our who were highly recognized in their professor saw this as an opportunity to various fields. In the normal university convey a message to the entire class, this setting, at least at that time, these were fresh and impressionable group of young people one would hear about, but never minds. He made no attempt to answer the encounter unless one was pursuing a question, but he did speak directly to my specific advanced graduate degree. What use of the ‘why’ word. What he said was was different about the school I was at- that the question ‘why’ was not the con- tending was that all these professors were cern of science, and if that was the sort of required to teach some undergraduate question that interested me, I would be courses, often prerequisites for an under- better served speaking to someone in graduate degree. This was a brilliant ap- philosophy or the divinity school. proach because at an early stage in the A few days later I ran into a friend who students’ university life it made it possible was pursuing a doctorate in the divinity for them to come in contact with people school. I shared with him my recent ex- whose thinking, research, and ideas were perience in the astrophysics class, and shaping society. asked him how such a question was The moment I remember so clearly approached in his discipline. Although took place in a class on astrophysics. In now his response would not have affected spite of my initial aversion to the subject, me so deeply, at that time I was sufficiently I was quickly fascinated with the methods young and naive to be surprised. He told and ways of thinking applied to the attempt me that ‘why’ was also not the concern in to comprehend the physical universe. Part the divinity school. The study of divinity of my excitement about the subject was at the school examined ‘how’ and ‘when’ the animated and interactive presence of such ‘why’ questions arose in history; the
September 2014 The Theosophist 3 On the Watch-Tower movements and thinking that formed term ‘scientist’ in the late 1800’s, people around them; the social and institutional who engaged in the study of nature and consequences, but any attempt at either the physical universe were called ‘natural an intellectual or experiential response to philosophers’. Natural philosophy was the the question was not their concern. The attempt to describe and understand the Divinity School was a ‘graduate pro- workings of Nature and the universe. As fessional school for the academic study a philosophical endeavor, it was not of religion’. focused on practical results. However, In recent times, the last four to five applications did arise out of the ferment hundred years, a shift has taken place in of observation and analysis. During the the way human society values and pro- 19th century, science became a profession cesses knowledge. In earlier days the accompanied by the necessary institutions people who were instrumental in shaping to support it. the affairs of the heart and mind were those Today the time of the polymath has who were deemed wise. Always these passed. Due to the high degree of spe- were people whose vision and experience cialization, particularly in the sciences, it was broad — people who had thought has become virtually impossible for one about, experimented with, and arrived at person to be an expert in more than one conclusions about the variety of life’s field of study. Even the process of scientific processes. Many of these individuals discovery requires the effort of teams of could be described by the term polymath people. This state of affairs has been the — people whose expertise spans a sig- source of phenomenal discoveries and an nificant number of different subject areas. ongoing exponential growth in our overall In the culture of the Western world such knowledge base. It has also been the names as Leonardo da Vinci, Michael- source of significant problems. Mahatma angelo, Galileo, Nicolaus Copernicus, Gandhi foresaw some of the consequen- Francis Bacon, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), ces of this trend in human behaviour and and Omar Khayyam are examples of values. He famously said: ‘The expert people with this synthesizing approach to knows more and more about less and less knowledge. The expectation for the wise until he knows everything about nothing.’ was that they be possessed of an expansive This thought was differently expressed vision. A profound awareness of science, by the Zen philosopher Shunryu Suzuki: the arts, mathematics, poetry, philosophy, ‘In the beginner’s mind there are many pos- medicine, and spirituality was the norm sibilities. In the expert’s mind there are for such people. few.’ In the Maha Chohan’s letter (1880) One of the hallmarks of our current the two poles that were dominating the dir- time is the high degree of specialization ection of human thinking were described that has taken place in virtually all fields as ‘brutal materialism and superstition’. At of knowledge. Before the coining of the that time science was leading the charge
4 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 On the Watch-Tower for the materialistic worldview. The pre- unheard of cruelty and enormities, tyranny, vailing trend that has dominated scientific injustice, and so on, if not through the thinking for the past three to four hundred soothing influence of a brotherhood, and years has been named ‘reductionist mater- the practical application of Buddha’s ialism’. It is called reductionist for a couple esoteric doctrines?’ The clear message of reasons: 1) it reduces the universe and was the need for the spiritualizing in- the allowed thinking about the universe fluence of the message of Theosophy to to the physical realm only; and 2) it bases ‘practically react upon the . . . moral code.’ its analysis of that universe on an Theosophy and the movement that fol- understanding of the smallest particles of lowed its reintroduction was not viewed physical matter as the building blocks of as merely a better system of information, everything else. These smallest particles but as an active agent capable of shaping were once thought of as atoms, but now values, of influencing ‘the ideas of truth- are recognized as sub-atomic. This line fulness, purity, self denial, charity, etc.’ of thinking and the necessary dead end to Today the concepts of Theosophy have which it was leading humanity was clearly entered into the mainstream of thought in recognized at the time of the founding of ways that few could have foreseen. The the Theosophical Society. It was one of core ideas of brotherhood, oneness of all the reasons that the TS came into being. life, the multidimensional nature of reality, In our time, science has become the karma, reincarnation, are familiar ideas to voice of authority in virtually all things. The most people worldwide. Traditionally, gulf between the religious and scientific these were seen as purely metaphysical views has widened. This dominance has or philosophical ideas. been achieved because, unlike most reli- In the Mahatma Letters, Master KH gious claims, the claims of science can and makes the statement that ‘modern science must be demonstrated. Although the range is our best ally’. Particularly in the field of scientific discovery and the development of quantum physics, scientific language of far-reaching technologies is impressive, and thinking are aligning with some of it still deals only with the physical realm. Theosophy’s core teachings. The ageless It can make no comment on the world of wisdom is finding new terms, this time values, insight, love, intuition, or conscious- scientific, to express its profound ideas. ness. It deals with a world of knowledge, In the language of quantum physics, non- not wisdom; of how, not why. locality, or entanglement, the central In the Maha Chohan’s letter the pre- quantum observation that two objects dictable result of a continuation in the ever- separated in space react upon each other, increasing trend of science-led materialism is a scientific indication of the fact of One- was discussed. He asks the question: ‘How ness, or brotherhood. Nothing is separate. is the combative natural instinct of man Wave/particle duality as an aspect of the to be restrained from inflicting hitherto central quantum concept of complement-
September 2014 The Theosophist 5 On the Watch-Tower arity describes the ‘collapse’ of waves of We find ourselves in a period of con- possibilities into particles. From the pers- vergence, where the formerly radical ideas pective of consciousness, these particles embodied in Theosophy are finding a are perceived as things, events, people, widening acceptance. Although the deeper or vehicles of consciousness. In theo- significance of these ideas is largely sophical terminology we could speak of unappreciated, a common language is the ‘possibilities’ of Atma collapsing into developing to move into the previously expression in Buddhi, and likewise with forbidden territory of consciousness. The Manas to Kama, and so on. Discontinuity, necessary work of spreading ideas, of which is observed in the phenomenon of preparing the soil, is not over, but has an electron’s ‘quantum leap’ to a higher or been done sufficiently well for these lower energy level, repeats the inner ex- concepts not merely to take root, but to perience of creative insight, or illumination. begin to flower. ²
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavours, life would have seemed to me empty. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible. Albert Einstein
NOTICE Ms Marja Artamaa has been appointed as International Secretary of the Theosophical Society effecive 24 August 2014. Mr Tim Boyd President
6 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen The Visionary World of Stockhausen
ALAN SENIOR
THE German composer Karlheinz and Stockhausen had presented a five and Stockhausen (1928-2007) had views in a half hour daily dose of his works for many ways similar to those of Alexander six months to an estimated audience of Scriabin, and had studied philosophies over a million people. It was perhaps the ranging from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche equivalent of Scriabin’s unrealizable temple to Theosophy and anthroposophy, which in the Himalayas for the performance of also influenced Holst, Bax, Schoenberg, his Mystery. All this was indeterminate, Rudhyar, and Cage — in fact all those somewhat unpredictable music, but in composers who believed that the secret Stockhausen’s hands it became controlled of the universe was to be solved by chance. It was combined with elements ecstatic intuition rather than the intellect. from an impulse generator with filtered But we have to enter Stockhausen’s world, noises and multi-channel tape machines with its 253 individually performable producing layers (or ‘clouds’) of sound, works, quite openly. the musicians often combining at random. One three-hour piece, Sternklang (Star So here was an innovator always searching Sound) of 1971, should be performed for new sounds never heard before, outdoors, said Stockhausen, preferably in longing for a permanent spherical building a large park with the twenty-one instru- suitable for his spatial music, fitted all mentalists spread out but able to hear each around with loudspeakers, with the music other, whilst the public walked around. . . coming from above, from below, and from This was the nearest he could get to the all points of the compass. spherical auditorium at the 1970 World Fair Stockhausen has been described as in Osaka, Japan, which had been found daring, charismatic, eternally creative, to be the ideal venue to perform his ‘space compelling, and spiritually elevated, music’ with its combination of multi- but also unsettling and provocative ... directional, electronic sounds produced technically brilliant with controversial alongside the performing musicians. spiritual aspirations — a visionary guru Inside were ten rows of speakers, over fifty in fact. Like Scriabin he developed what in all, some located below the audience, he called ‘intuitive music’ through which
Mr Alan Senior lectures widely on Art, Music, and Theosophy. He is the Editor of Circles, the magazine of the Theosophical Society in Scotland.
September 2014 The Theosophist 7 The Visionary World of Stockhausen he hoped the higher mind might contact longed for a different and better world, the cosmic universal spirit. The American but unfortunately there were others who composer, artist, and astrologer Dane helped promote the drug culture. The Rudhyar once asked: ‘When does sound Beatles meanwhile were influenced by become music?’ and today there have Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, though the words been changes in what constitutes musical of George Harrison’s song, ‘Within you sounds and the responses of those hearing and without you’ might equally have come them — new sounds in new circumstances, from Krishnamurti: ‘Try to realize it’s all added to an expanded category where within yourself, no one else can make you technical knowledge has altered the way change, and to see you’re really only very in which we react. Technology has pro- small, and life flows on within you and duced original combinations of vibrations without you.’ perceptible to the ear which, in order to Stockhausen’s contribution came from be experienced fully, as Rudhyar observed, various schools of occultism in an era that requires the embryonic growth of a new also fostered ‘global awareness’ well before mind and a consecrated will to achieve economic globalization. He not only psychic and intellectual transformation . . . encouraged East-West music, he absorbed to stimulate, to arouse, to break down crys- orientalism, aiming for a global musical tallizations, and to make you live a more unity. He was also aware that many intense, creative, transforming type of physicists, cosmologists, and genetic life ... in other words, a new kind scientists were seeing how we were slowly of consciousness. moving towards a unified world concept. Stockhausen called himself an adven- Stockhausen declared that making music turer, an inventor, an experimenter, and a is a spiritual activity, the sounds created discoverer. But, for him, living in a society being a vehicle for people to discover their dominated by visual images, the world of inner selves and what they have forgotten sound was far more spiritual, which is why about themselves (meaning that we are musicians are so important for human essentially spiritual beings). All the rest, evolution, he said. The 1960s, when his he stressed, is secondary and technical. ‘In music really emerged, were characterized our arid, rigid, confrontational, dualistic (if you can remember) by the age we need unity in music as an urgent necessity or we will die as a civilization.’ transpersonal expansion of consciousness, A positive, non-pessimistic philosophy the questioning of authority, a sense of was important for Stockhausen, where empowerment, the anti-war and women’s love-thoughts always overcame death- movements, and the experience of sen- thoughts. Death in many forms had suous beauty and community. dominated his boyhood years. He had seen Bob Dylan’s song, ‘The times they are the mental breakdown of his mother, who a-changing’, spoke to the young who was ‘institutionalized’, then murdered by
8 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen the Nazis. During his musical training means that if we are completely swallowed in the 1940s he had said farewell to his up in the process of listening, we will father who was killed on the Russian Front, never be the same again after having heard whilst he, at sixteen, was drafted as a the music. And he believed that the endless stretcher-bearer in Germany, dealing with ultra-violent films produced by Hollywood hundreds of dead or dying at the end of will eventually be rejected, with more and the war. Here he sometimes serenaded more people discovering quiet meditation dying soldiers with his favourite American as something completely different, because ‘pop’ numbers, ‘Tea for Two’ (which the visual world fails to reach their souls. Shostakovich also arranged in Russia) This is why he tried, to the end of his life, and ‘Honeysuckle Rose’. No wonder, to create ‘cosmic music’ — music aimed at with this grim, almost surreal background, making contact with the supra-human he later ‘fled from reality’ as one com- world, ‘cosmic ways of experiencing the mentator put it. But rather than being world’, as he put it, with music seen as broken by such experiences he came to the best medium for that visionary process. see death as far less important than people Thus music for him was a vessel for usually suppose it to be, and he believed people to tune into the supranatural world what the theosophists have always and, indeed, their real selves, but the maintained — that the soul of man is listener must come to this music without immortal, without limit, with death seen any preconditioning, discovering new not as the end of life but as a transition layers within himself, with no ready- from one stage to another, with the made compartments. certainty of final attainment. His later Stockhausen often spoke of supra- studies of Buddhism also led him to the humanity, when people transform them- idea of Nirvâna, where the individual no selves into something else — superhuman longer exists due to there being con- spirits operating at a higher level, where sciousness of Self . . . as he said, ‘the only consciousness attains a new dimension. real death in the Universe.’ This came from having been taught, at one Pure mind transcends death, he said, time, by Sri Aurobindo, whose philosophy because it is beyond time and liberates us has links with Nietzsche’s Übermenschen from duality. ‘The kind of music and the (see The Theosophist, Vol. 130, No. 12, amount of music one has heard during Sept. 2009, pp. 447-452). Musicians must, one’s lifetime is decisive for the soul’s state he stressed, be in complete command of after death.’ This points to the influence themselves, leading the kind of lives of Rudolf Steiner and the necessary necessary for performing high-quality, development of meditative listening. intuitive music. And, like the American Stockhausen wanted us not to be con- composer Alan Hovhaness, he believed scious of the music but to be conscious as that his intuitions were guided by the the music — ‘we are the music’. This angelic kingdom, trusting in this inner
September 2014 The Theosophist 9 The Visionary World of Stockhausen experience of always being accompanied establish righteousness and the minds of and protected by an angel, no matter what those who live at the end of the Kali Age happened to him. He believed, too, that shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid the spiritual preparation of the performers as crystal. (something that Scriabin had advocated) Let us hope so. would lead to the music transporting the Stockhausen always felt that his music audience into a spiritual realm, with the was a quest for unity to bring us to the sounds acting as a vessel for those cosmic essential One, and to help weather the forces that run through everything, beyond shocks and disasters to come, after which any mental level. This is the dawn of a will come a rebirth. But musicians must spiritual era, he said, beyond exclusive now develop a technique ‘to reach the religions and ideologies, as we move intuitive level at all times — a group gradually towards global consciousness. activity to create an atmosphere of peace, ‘But it will not happen,’ he added, ‘until which requires an immense spiritual effort we end the completely materialistic and to combat the negative, destructive forces fatalistic outlook lying behind the military- in society’. This was why he composed dominated, self-defensive attitudes.’ so much for voices, to help awaken a The Vishnu Purana describes the new consciousness of the oneness of the drastic state of affairs experienced today, human family. Singers, he said, must be identified then as the Kali Yuga or end filled with the divine spirit, transmitting a time of, and one can easily recognize here profound joy in life, becoming like the the alarming circumstances currently being music being sung, to provide spiritual experienced all over the modern world: nourishment. All this demands opening Prosperity and devoutness will decrease oneself to intuition, ‘so as to infuse every day by day until the world has been com- note with spiritual intention, which de- pletely ruined. Possessions alone will decide mands specific preparatory spiritual rank. Only riches can ensure devotion. exercises’ (again echoing the intentions Passion will be the only link between the of Scriabin for The Mystery). Then, when sexes, falsity the only way to success. they perform it, they will hopefully Women will be degraded to objects of lust. make contact with ‘cosmic energies’ and universal consciousness. It involves, he But the teaching tells us that stressed, constant meditation and trans- when the practices taught by the Vedas and formation of the lives of both musicians the institutes of law shall have nearly and audience the rejection of materialism ceased, an aspect of that Divine Being who for a spiritual life. The highest of aims, exists in the character of Brahma shall then, but how closely can audiences of descend upon the earth. By his irresistible today respond? might he will destroy . . . all whose minds The process also includes the concept are devoted to iniquity. He will then re- of chance in this intuitive music making,
10 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen and he also spoke of creative ecstasy, has undergone an enormously decadent which again links him to Scriabin. He development, and we are now once again constantly talked of not making the music about to wake up, to remember . . .’ but of relaying the vibrations he received, Stockhausen predicted difficult times with the self no longer in operation, to try ahead for all of us — devaluation, extreme to connect the player to that ‘inexhaustible poverty, military governments, wars with source’. So we have here the idea of ‘music China, the Arab nations, and the Africans, from beyond’, with the musicians ‘tuned with peace brought about only through in like receivers’ to obtain those vibrations sheer exhaustion. So he declared, jokingly, from a higher sphere, then transforming that after death he would think twice about them into sounds by being completely coming back into incarnation! The only open in a state of constant awareness. This peace he foresaw immediately would be would then allow the vibrations of the created within, aided by listening to serene, universe to penetrate our individual human tranquil music. But he stated that he would existence: ‘music should above all be a eventually retire to the constellation Sirius, means of maintaining the soul’s link with important in Egyptian mythology and the beyond’, he said. believed by some to have a special link to Stockhausen described our planet as a the Earth’s destiny, a place ‘where every- schoolhouse, its inhabitants at different thing is music’, the language of more highly stages of development, and with everyone developed beings, one day to become our having something to teach everyone else, universal language. This fascination with whether higher or lower on the evolution- the star produced, in 1977, a 1½ hour, ary ladder. And new music was the means eight-channel vocal composition called to draw people upwards, to develop into Sirius, which had four different versions. higher beings — which is why some could Both Sirius and the Pleïades seem to not take his increasing complexity and have been a great source of inspiration polyphony. The real meaning of each for Stockhausen. So, one might ask: what piece, each sound, would only become are those ‘sweet influences of the Pleïades’ important to the listener when he or she referred to in the Book of Job? The answer, was transformed by the music’s more for some, lies in occult literature and the complex rhythms, designed to bring about belief that those fully attuned to energies significant changes in consciousness. transmitted from these stars can be freed Stockhausen absorbed many occult ideas from all blockages in their subtle bodies and declared that this planet has been culti- — astral, etheric, and mental. Ignoring the vated by higher forms of existence that wealth of so-called ‘star knowledge’ from established a culture here and who return ‘tuned-in’ channellers, some of whom claim from time to time — say every 10,000 years that UFOs are coming to Earth from this — to see how things are progressing. ‘In system, Alice Bailey wrote that the Pleïades my opinion,’ he said, ‘this planet’s culture have an influence on the consciousness
September 2014 The Theosophist 11 The Visionary World of Stockhausen of selected seekers who have experienced of mankind from the conditioning which the ‘sacred void’, or an emptying, which imprisons us — one of the main concerns prepares them for contact with the Divine in Krishnamurti’s teachings, together with Mind via intuitive, heightened awareness, desirelessness, good conduct, and love, which was so diligently sought after by the keynotes of his early book, At the Feet Scriabin. In Bailey’s A Treatise on Cosmic of the Master. (It was not uncommon in Fire of 1930, you will find references to those days for star names to be given to these ideas, from the influence of the members of the Theosophical Society Pleïades as the source of electrical energy who were believed to have attained a high in our Solar System, to Sirius seen as ‘the spiritual level). origin of the Logoic mind’, with the entire All this may seem to be a ‘retreat from work of the Great White Lodge (the reality’ but the most important aspect of Spiritual Hierarchy) controlled from Sirius this ‘star influence’ for Stockhausen and — all of which means more to those who others was sound and vibration, plus the have undergone a seven-year study in the belief that Sirius, the Pleïades, and our Arcane School, a course founded by Alice own Sun are strongly linked, with Sirius and her husband Foster Bailey ‘to serve said to be that ‘source of the mind of the humanity and to cooperate with the Divine Logos’, the deity or principle of creation Plan, to expand consciousness and develop or emanation, ‘the divine principle soul-powers.’ governing the universe’ according to the Many ‘seed men’ (to use one of Dane third century BC Stoic philosopher Zeno. Rudhyar’s terms) are said to have received Theosophy identifies three different ‘great waves’ of the Pleïadian energy, Logoi, unmanifest and manifest, and the which have stimulated the heart centre and third one being the Creative Deity which transformed their consciousness to such gave birth to the universe. With ideas like an extent that they are able to ‘live the this pervading his consciousness, we can Wisdom’ and to become vehicles sharing see why Stockhausen believed that the these ‘seed ideas’ with others. In the process function and meaning of music is not for they have eliminated their egos through entertainment but for sacred service, to be inner transformation, whilst overcoming used in answering those fundamental all inhibiting and illusory conditioning of questions, ignored in our present culture, the lower, rational mind. You will remem- about the reasons for our existence. ber that Alcyone, the brightest star in Then, he said, the restrictions of space- the Pleïades, was the name given to time will be obliterated as ‘the inner eye Krishnamurti in his teenage years. It opens to produce an imaginative extension represents this transformative quality of of mere hearing’ — the music multi- consciousness which leads to the ability dimensional with choreography, lights, to work and function at the level of the costumes, sound diffusion, the unexpected higher mind, and to aid in the liberation and the unforeseeable, with the musicians
12 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen often becoming mime artists and per- piece is assured and virtuosic, and there forming from memory. Like Varèse he are many quiet, tranquil passages inter- found our instruments, performances, and spersed with very loud, restless music and acoustical conditions too primitive and constantly-changing time signatures. It underdeveloped for the different vibrations was also entirely new, dynamic, and he longed to work with, feeling his many liberating, partly influenced by Richard ideas would never be realized. Yet his Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, when you ambitions were to culminate in a vast sometimes have the feeling of sections of operatic project, Light, in seven sections, the orchestra answering each other across each to be performed on the seven days a valley in the Swiss Alps, where of the week, as we will see. But sometimes Stockhausen actually conceived the com- he reverted to more conventional notation position. But the audience for Gruppen in his scores, particularly in his more might only receive a limited acoustic intimate chamber music. perspective by remaining seated in one Gruppen (Groups) of 1957 has been place, and its ‘spatial feel’ — where the called an early masterpiece and it inspired, music merges, then diverges (like moving together with the composer’s semi- sound) — cannot really be captured in a scientific and part-visionary lectures, recording, even with surround stereo. This enormous admiration and inspiration from was written before New Age spirituality all kinds of people — from college and the counterculture occurred, inspired professors to ‘way-out’ rock stars. The by Indian philosophy and Indian classical Beatles were to use similar sounds in their music, when concerts contained ‘light music and they included Stockhausen’s shows’, psychedelic art, actors, dancers, portrait, among others, on the cover of the visual artists, poets, and audience partici- LP ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts pation — all brought in during the ’60s in Club Band’. Audiences were impressed a spirit of spontaneity to help break down when they saw the composer quietly many musical forms. So this multilayered meditating on the stage before the music composition, with more than one orchestra began, which no doubt also appealed to placed in different parts of the concert hall, young Maharishi enthusiasts and the was a precursor to the many experimental ‘psychedelic set’. But the music, once phases and musical innovations to come. started, was anything but meditative . . . Karlheinz Stockhausen was always Gruppen has been called many things, experimental in his music, which belonged such as ‘a tonal labyrinth’, ‘a mind- to no genre, no school and no fashion. expanding tour de force through a hall of But it led to some harsh criticisms such as mirrors’, and ‘a controlled pandemonium’. ‘chaotic, experimental plinky-plonky One hundred and nine players are divided music’ or ‘my four-year-old made better into three orchestral groups, each with sounds banging on some metal in the its own conductor. But this conflicting alley,’ or even ‘music I’d use to chase the
September 2014 The Theosophist 13 The Visionary World of Stockhausen mice out of my house!’ Thomas Beecham, California) reported similar occurrences when asked if he had encountered any with members of his women’s choir when Stockhausen, said: ‘No, but I think I once performing antiphons by the twelfth trod on some.’ Such responses show the century Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. He difficulties in coming to terms with said that he had never met a singer who did Stockhausen’s experimental phases. But not have mystical experiences performing he was always sincere and serious about them, as they have to hyperventilate to get his quest for new, meaningful sounds. to the notes, which sometimes sends them Such comments may be superficial, but into trances. ‘Hildegard wasn’t ignorant of they have tended to colour people’s the power of breath to put people into opinions about the composer’s so-called altered states of consciousness,’ he said, ‘noises’, which are often not noisy, but ‘far healthier and cheaper than cocaine to thoroughly intimate, quiet and extremely contact the transcendental.’ inventive, even though we would not Stockhausen’s Hymnen (Anthems) of ordinarily describe them as music, however 1966-68 lasts for about 114 minutes and well organized. again shows him as a risk-taker, whilst Jill Purce, who has spoken at the living ‘in abundant expectancy’ that it headquarters of the Theosophical Society would work out well. He had become in England, pioneered the International interested in music of all countries and Sound Healing movement; she is an ex- races, and he included about 40 national ponent of overtone chanting and worked anthems in Hymnen. Here, nothing is what with Stockhausen for three years. Over- it seems, a distortion of the familiar with tone chanting originated in Mongolia and continuous transformation (electronically) this mix of natural harmonics emitted from to trigger all kinds of emotional responses a fundamental note produces a unique as the anthems merge into each other. sound and is the basis of Stockhausen’s National anthems are to do with history Stimmung of 1968. But the idea of six and time — past, present, and future. But voices singing without words for 75 they also stand for separation, nationalism, minutes, supported by electronic music, and sometimes isolation. By combining remains strange, puzzling, and difficult to them Stockhausen was suggesting integra- comprehend for many people. However, tion and, indeed, global consciousness. Jill Purce believes, like the composer, that They are continually transformed, as the intense concentration needed during the we must be transformed before ridding chanting creates psychological processes ourselves of narrow-mindedness, in order that allow the participants ‘to enter into to feel ‘the unity of all peoples and nations the world of spirit’. It is interesting that in a harmonious human family.’ That was Matthew Fox (writer, Dominican scholar Stockhausen’s message for ‘a profoundly and Director of the Institute in Culture sick society’, and those frequent distortions and Creation Spirituality in Oakland, reflect the degree of destruction we must
14 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen experience before there can be world improvisation in the ordinary sense, or peace. Echoing Rudhyar, he declared: to the subconscious mind, but to the ‘We have to go through these crises . . . supra-conscious, when the higher mind, there is no other way.’ But he was aware beyond thinking, ‘enters into the per- that there are many groups throughout formers.’ Then, he said, the musicians are the world, however small, striving for a able to play ‘out of the void’ with no pre- better future. ‘I believe that despite the established styles or traditions. And he great physical crisis, purification must added that in intuitive music the concept come ... that the next step will bring of the composer as writer of music no spiritualization on a larger scale.’ longer suffices. Amongst the instructions and pre- Stockhausen never wanted to repeat parations Stockhausen gave for two later himself, and new realizations would con- pieces, one calls for the performers to tinually occur, all completely different. have fasted alone for four days, another He knew how difficult it was for musicians to imagine energies within the body to break away from their environment, (meaningful, perhaps, for those with yogic training, and techniques, and to be told: and meditative experience). Yet another ‘Do not think anything, then start to play.’ instruction calls on them to clear away It also involved the cessation of emotions, all thoughts and to await ‘the voice of conditioning, and all outside influences to the silence’, then to play single sounds be replaced by inner calm in order to ‘until you feel the warmth that radiates achieve that oneness with the other from you.’ Moods, improvisation, in- performers, and hopefully to undergo determinacy, suggestion, and evocations that life-changing transformation he all appear in the process which, although continually spoke about. ‘It will take time’, dependent upon teamwork, should create he said, ‘not just with this generation but a strong sense of freedom. also with the one to come.’ Then, with the same language used by Rudhyar, he Play a tone for so long, he wrote amongst added: ‘I have great confidence in what a group of non-authoritarian instructions, will emerge from these seeds.’ ‘. . . until you hear its individual vibrations. Stockhausen is known to have studied Hold the tone and listen to the tones of the the Indian approach to sound which spoke others — to all of them together, not to of the first manifestation of spirit, telling individual ones — and slowly move your how various mantras and repetitions of tone until you arrive at complete harmony, certain sounds seem to be linked to and the whole sound turns to gold, to pure, different planes and centres of conscious- gently shimmering fire . . . ness. The mantras and poems in the Vedas This was an attempt to play intuitive and the Upanishads are said to connect music in a group, absolutely timeless with these higher planes of conscious- and centred on now. It is not related to ness, or even to open the consciousness
September 2014 The Theosophist 15 The Visionary World of Stockhausen to divine influences, with music having composer so that he is able to capture ‘initiatory powers’ so that the Real can them and make audible the sound-images enter, ‘creating illumination to one who is or sound-colours and ideas from the ready,’ said Sri Aurobindo in his epic poem illumined or intuitive mind. Hence Sâvitri. The writings of Sri Aurobindo Stockhausen’s use of the term ‘intuitive were a great influence, particularly his music’ — which, he said, ‘comes into the ‘Supramental Vision of Time’ which consciousness with a sort of halo of attempted to restore Vedic wisdom, the eternity.’ These were the ideas he tried to Sanâtana Dharma — eternal Truth of convey to the audience at the première of being, or the evolution of consciousness. Mantra of 1970, composed not for voices This involved transformation into supra but for two ring-modulated pianos, antique (greater) mentality, whereby the higher cymbals, and wood block, with a short- mind will descend into the world . . . not wave radio producing morse code, which in some future time, said Aurobindo, but could not be easily done now as morse now. Such a development from mind to code has been phased out. supermind he called ‘Truth-Conscious- Stockhausen’s final immense project ness to dominate the conscious being’. Licht (Light) was begun in 1977 and This mystical philosopher also talked of subtitled ‘The Seven Days of the Week’. ‘a Dark Present but a Bright Future’ for Like Scriabin’s projected Mystery the humanity. But it would require aspiration performance would be a seven-day event and personal effort, he said, to turn the soul (seven always indicating completion in from the egoistic to the transcendental occult literature), and his invention of a and universal: linguistic system also reflects Scriabin’s attempts, when both composers found for the spiritual seeker this change of existing languages to be inadequate for consciousness is the only thing he their task. What is more, Stockhausen seeks and nothing else matters. ... The wished the pictorial and dynamic aspects Supramental or the Supreme Truth can- to be inseparable from the music, so that not be reached in one bound or even in the staging requirements are complex and many bounds; one has to pursue a calm, difficult to mount. The word ‘light’ refers patient, steady progress through many to various states of cosmic manifestation intervening stages without getting attached and consciousness in esoteric literature. to . . . lesser Truth. Stockhausen was fully aware of light used So mantras, allied to the right kind of as a description of spiritual achievement, music were, for the composer, products the realization of transcendental truths, or of the higher mind, which he was always as inner light found in the New Testament, seeking to contact, and to hear ‘music where Christ states: ‘I am the light of the from beyond’. The vibrations or waves or world’ (John 8:12), and ‘While ye have rhythms might then ‘overshadow’ the light, believe in the light, that ye may be
16 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Visionary World of Stockhausen children of light’ (John 12:36), and ‘Let colours (exoteric and esoteric) and their your light so shine before men, that they own instruments. Michael is described as may see your good works . . . ’ (Matthew the ‘visage of Christ’ and ‘Creator Son’, ruler 5:16). It has frequently appeared in works of our local universe, and in Stockhausen’s by other composers, always as an all- plot represents the progressive forces of illuminating manifestation of spiritual development; Lucifer is the antagonist, attainment. So each day in Stockhausen’s and Eve works towards a renewal of the opera was an aspect of light and colours, ‘genetic quality’ of humanity through the also reflected in stones, jewels, plants, re-creation of an essentially ‘musical’ animals, human races, planets, and stars, human race . . . Stockhausen may have drawn from ‘the science of correspondences’ been aware of Blavatsky’s insistence that in esoteric philosophy. This was based on Lucifer was the Bearer of Light, similar the principle of essential similarities to the legend of Prometheus, the one who between structures and systems, important brought intelligence to mankind against in the study of the inner side of Nature, the wishes of Zeus. But he chose to depict and Stockhausen probably knew of him as the cosmic spirit of rebellion and Blavatsky’s Table of Correspondences anarchy, with the colour black. connecting hierarchies, principles, senses, Each day of the week has themes based colours, elements, and so on. Kandinsky on human experience. Wednesday, called also sought to define ‘the authentic’ Collaboration and Reconciliation Day, through colour in his art, declaring that posed so many staging problems that they shades of colour awaken extra-fine emotions were almost impossible to solve . . . such in the viewer. Stockhausen based his as the scene above an African jungle with scheme on the seven planets of antiquity the sounds of wild animals. The most and historical traditions associated with complicated vista of all is where sixteen weekdays; for example, Monday was about string quartet members board four heli- birth and fertility, Tuesday conflict and copters. Whilst flying in different flight war, Wednesday reconciliation and co- paths their music has to be transmitted operation, Thursday travel and learning, by four microphones, and four cameras and so on. provide a video link to the auditorium This cycle of seven operas, some where multiple video screens are set up lasting for five hours but remaining so the public can watch and hear the four incomplete, would take longer to perform musicians playing synchronously . . . very than Wagner’s Ring Cycle and it was also polyphonic and demanding music. influenced by the ceremony and ritual of Since his death in 2007 we have heard the Japanese Noh Theatre, with further very little of the music, despite the pro- links to Judeo-Christianity, the Vedas, motional efforts of his trumpeter-composer the Hindu god Agni and Aurobindo’s son Markus, and his champions Pierre ‘supramentality’. Each of the characters Boulez and Kent Nagano. Perhaps, as some Michael, Eve, and Lucifer have their own think, his actual presence and direction
September 2014 The Theosophist 17 The Visionary World of Stockhausen were needed to make sense of the many appreciated. Meanwhile, he said, we are large-scale pieces, and to inspire both just at the beginning of this new art. performers and audiences. Others say that However, millions continue to visit his the works are generally too long — ‘some websites, showing the vast influence he interesting sections interspersed with long continues to exert, whilst his one-time stretches of interminable tedium’ was one teacher Olivier Messiaen proclaimed him, criticism. So listening to these lengthy alongside Pierre Boulez, as a leading pieces can leave people uninvolved, the figure in the future of music. ‘Only music,’ music lacking that architectural strength said Stockhausen, ‘is capable of bringing necessary for huge compositions, and about experiences of supernatural time- Stockhausen remains incomprehensible to processes and of flying through unlimited many music-lovers. Also, he had freely space, and of making you really feel admitted that most of the colleagues he you’re a spiritual being, not primarily worked with did not share his spiritual identified with the body.’ So music, for views and aspirations; nor were they him, was all about being shaken to the willing to put in the effort to reach that depths of one’s soul by beauty, wealth of ‘higher knowledge’ he envisaged. But he imagination, intelligence, power, delicacy, remained convinced that sound synthesis subtlety . . . or even feeling oneself taken and space music, with their dynamic out of the body. And his use of the word ‘beauty’ is interesting when related to the subtleties and ability to transform known concept of the Russian painter, Nicholas sounds into something completely dif- Roerich, who said: ferent, would be dominant in future decades, with these sounds moving in Art will unify all humanity. Art is one — all directions and at many speeds around indivisible. Art has its many branches, yet the audience, if ideally performed in a all are one. Art is the manifestation of the spherical auditorium. And he felt, too, that coming synthesis. The Gates of the ‘Sacred Source’ must be wide open for the use of new combinations and new everybody, and the light of art will media would lead to spiritual experiences influence numerous hearts with a new and heightened consciousness, to expand love. At first this feeling will be our perceptions and sensibilities; then, unconscious, but after all it will purify and only then, would the new music be human consciousness . . . ²
Further Reading: Towards a Cosmic Music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, tr. Tim Nevill (Element Books, Dorset, 1989). Stockhausen, a Biography, Michael Kurtz (Faber & Faber, 1994). The Music of Stockhausen, Jonathan Harvey (University of California Press, 1975). In Quest of Spirit (Thoughts on Music), Jonathan Harvey (University of California Press, 1999). Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Robin MacOnie (Scarecrow Press Inc., 2005).
18 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present
NILDA VENEGAS BERNAL
THE current approach of science to the included, but with a new understanding truths expressed by the great spiritual and a holistic view. The true scientific mind traditions is an expression of the crucial remains open, and without identifying movement for the collective awakening itself with only past knowledge, is able to of human consciousness. Until very maximize its potential to access new recently, general thought on this was realities not yet perceived. dominated by a rationality centred in the We can cite determining points in physical field, which represented con- the fields of quantum physics, relativity, ventional science. biology, psychology, and so on, that Since the instruments and techniques harmonize the principles described in the developed for specific research have gone great spiritual traditions of the Orient, like beyond known limits, this has produced Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and so a rejection of what was previously estab- forth and find that these are essentially lished — the dominant paradigm; and a expressed in Theosophy. Leaders in those new stage opens which offers possibilities fields find with joy the great resonance of that transcend or penetrate beyond the the new postulations of science with those physical or the tangible. eternal truths. The world and its subtle fields can The Mahachohan, in his letter of 1881, be experimented on and investigated to be said: understood. The researcher can recognize The doctrine we promulgate being the only his or her involvement and participation in true one, must, supported by such evidence the investigation and observation process. as we are preparing to give, become ulti- This reminds us of Krishnamurti’s explana- mately triumphant as every other truth. tions about the ‘observer’ and the ‘observed’. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate In the constant process of negation it gradually, enforcing its theories, un- of what was previously known to give impeachable facts for those who know, way to the new, past knowledge can be with direct inferences deduced from and
Ms Nilda Venegas Bernal is a former General Secretary of the Cuban Section, presently a member of the TS in Spain, practising psychiatry in Barcelona.
September 2014 The Theosophist 19 What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present
corroborated by the evidence furnished by personal relations. This form of attention modern exact science. develops the brain circuits in such a way that it allows us to establish a responsive These words speak of our present, one in and harmonious relationship with our which each of us from our own place can own mind. participate in this opportunity to collab- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Emeritus Professor orate with the expression and realization of Medicine at the University of of those transcendental truths, at a moment Massachusetts Medical School, believes in which science and spirituality begin to that ‘one definition of mindfulness is speak similar languages. paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non- Psychology and Consciousness judgmentally.’ In the field of psychology, Currently, meditation techniques for which as Jung once said is the science of mental health, better known as contem- the soul, nowadays the practices of Mind- plative sciences, are at their peak. In this fulness can be studied and investigated. field, a contemporary scientific approach Deep psychology invites us, and has done to spiritual practices and values is being so for some time, to attend to our inner achieved, that is, a tendency towards self. In Psychology and Alchemy Jung integration of the knowledge of man and states: ‘Your vision will become clear only about man, which can allow a more com- when you can look into your own heart. plete vision. Scientific studies that demon- Who looks outside, dreams; who looks strate the connections between the different inside, awakes’. states of consciousness, and their effects We are reminded of the quote by on brain activity and on the body in general, Master KH when he tells us: ‘The moral are becoming increasingly common. and spiritual sufferings of the world are The growing collaboration and in- more important and need help and cure tegration of the teachings of Buddhism, more than science needs aid from us in any neurosciences, and the sciences of the field of discovery.’ mind have changed the appearance of The individual who presents some kind new standardized techniques and models of problem or suffering, either physical to cultivate mental health and well-being. or mental, as we all do in our lives by the Interpersonal Neurobiology is based on very nature of our existence, can have con- the integration of knowledge proceeding tact during the therapy with a transformative from various disciplines. and authentic way to focus on problems. Integration could be considered as a It is possible to show how ‘the sense of common underlying mechanism in various attention to what is’ can be discovered only ways to arrive at well-being. The way in through our own experience. This deli- which we pay attention to the present mo- berate treatment without effort, freely, ment can directly improve the functioning without judgement, and not reactive, allows of the body, mind, mental health, and inter- the acceptance of that which is painful. In
20 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present this process which permits the participants and transcend. The quality of Love and its to see how and what each feels and thinks, implicit kindness allows the transformation they are detached from the thoughts that of the human being. are the bases of their suffering. To the In analytical psychology the totality of extent that the cognitive fusion which con- the person is considered as a goal towards trols the habitual psychological processes which the psychological development can be observed, and thereby progres- in the therapeutic process takes us. The sively weakened, we are entering into a therapist or analyst can accompany the state of metacognition, in which the in- individual in these stages relating to the dividuals achieve internal freedom and structure of the self, when the psycholo- are capable of increasing their capacity to gical contents are opened to integrate the realize that they are not simply thoughts aspects not previously known, amplifying or emotions. There is an observation that them as an individual part of the totality. permits us to be free in the moment of here The opening of the door of the uncon- and now, and that is ‘the only moment’. scious permits a progressive integration The attachments and impediments that that takes the individual to a transcendence are the profound cause of suffering are of the duality of the mind. The process of overcome. The natural practice of this form individuation that Jung expresses keeps of attention results in a state of psycho- taking shape and the individual recognizes logical well-being, of peace, serenity, his internal unity, or totality; that unity and happiness that can reflect itself in the connects and unites the individual with lives of the people — in the form of other human beings, but he still perceives increased giving, equanimity, sense of that he was never separated but always pro- beauty, and compassion. foundly bound and connected to them. The way in which we centre our attention Jung states in Psychology and Alchemy contributes to the modelling of the mind. that ‘Were it not a fact of experience that When we develop a concrete way to supreme values reside in the soul, psy- attend to the experiences of here and now, chology would not interest me in the least, and see the true nature of the mind, we are for the soul would then be nothing but a in front of a special form of attention that miserable smoke.’ Also in The Structure and is Mindfulness. Heart and mind are de- Dynamics of the Psyche he inspires us as fined by the same word in the Orient. follows: ‘Life always has to be treated as ‘Mindfulness’ includes an affectionate and something new.’ Krishnamurti said that ‘to compassionate quality of being present discover something new, one must start with a generous and friendly interest. with himself, he must set out on a journey, The path of suffering, about which the doing it completely naked, especially from Buddha showed us its nature and tran- knowledge. .. .’ And so we ask ourselves, scendence, is manifested in the practice what is the quality of the mind that permits of medicine of the body and mind. To be us to always live what is new? .. . Can healthy is to accept, understand, integrate, we name it? ²
September 2014 The Theosophist 21 Ancient Egyptian Religions Ancient Egyptian Religions
KETAN SHAH
EGYPT is said to be the oldest tourist Admiration of modern Egypt and destination in the world. The focus of fascination with its ancient monuments most visits remains the great monuments soon leads to curiosity about its past, of the Nile Valley and the pyramids of and in particular its religious past, which Giza. The land’s lifeblood is the river Nile, seems to be heavily present in surviving whose narrow fertility is in stark contrast monuments. This over-representation does to the arid wastes of its flank from the not tell the whole story, as will be seen upon Mediterranean to the Sudan. This stark closer examination: the ancient Egyptians duality between fertility and desolation is were not religious in our sense of the word. fundamental to Egypt’s character and has The Jain religion can be thought of shaped its development since prehistoric as the recognition by human beings of times imparting continuity to diverse a superhuman potential in each one of cultures and peoples over five millennia. us. Each individual human being can Egypt has a sense of permanence and consider himself or herself capable of timelessness that is buttressed by religion, achieving a status that frees one from the which pervades every aspect of life. cycle of birth and death. The effect of such Although the religion of ancient Egypt thoughts on individuals can lead to the is as moribund as its legacy of mummies setting-up of a system of self-study and and temples, its ancient fertility rites introspection leading to self-realization, and procession of boats still hold their and to the drawing up of a code of beliefs place in the celebrations of Islam and and conduct inspired by their religious faith. Christianity. The result of Egypt’s ancient This faith is extended to both mythical and legacy is a multilayered culture, which historic figures that are respected and seems to accord equal respect to both revered for having achieved a state of the ancient and modern. Throughout freedom from the cycle of birth and death. history what has united the Egyptians is a Interpretation and reinterpretation of their love of their homeland, extended family teachings is codified into a rich legacy of ties, dignity, warmth, and hospitality ecclesiastical literature. towards strangers. In ancient Egypt, religion was not like
Mr Ketan Shah is a long-standing member of the Nairobi TS Lodge.
22 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Ancient Egyptian Religions this. The Egyptians recognized many gods; were accommodating other people’s gods they did not have one universal system and always ready to receive additions to of religious belief. They had no sacred their own pantheon. They received but did books, analogous to the Kalpa Sutra; there not feel any great need to give; hence there were no theological commentaries or was no real attempt to persuade non- treatises, neither was there any dogma. Egyptians to worship Egyptian gods. In The well known Book of the Dead was their ancient religion, the basis of religion really a book of the ‘Underworld’ which was not belief but cult, particularly the was thought to be a mirror image of Egypt local cult, which meant more to the in- itself. Like the Hindus, the polytheism of dividual. Thus many deities flourished the ancient Egyptians led to tolerance. simultaneously and the Egyptians were Apart from two brief periods in their seemingly ever ready to adopt a new god history when there was an attempt to or to change their views about the old. The promote a (solar) monotheism analogous myriad gods worshipped by the ancient to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, the Egyptians fell into three main categories: Egyptian never suffered from persecutions 1) Local gods, who were the inanimate carried out in the name of religion; there objects (fetishes), or animals, birds and were no Egyptian saints, no martyrs. The other living creatures associated with a Egyptians were a gentle people for whom particular locality. the family was important. Hence, their 2) Personal gods, the objects or religion was based on family life. The creatures chosen by individuals to receive gods were given wives, goddesses given their allegiance. husbands; both had children. 3) Universal gods, the cosmic deities Temples continued the domestic theme, who represented the forces of Nature — being called ‘mansions’ of the gods, and the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and storm. architecturally they were based on the The predominant characteristics of house form, with rooms in them for eating much of Egyptian religion were animism, and sleeping. The innermost sanctuary fetishism, and magic. In less primitive was regarded as the bedroom of the god. times, theories were promulgated that The daily ritual of the temple was domestic turned magic into religion. Being an in form; the morning ritual gave the god agricultural people, the ancient Egyptians his breakfast, the evening ritual gave him were brought into daily contact with his dinner. Ancient Egyptian religion did animals and birds; it was not surprising not indulge in bloodbaths with animal or that they should turn such creatures into human sacrifices. Instead each god lived in objects of worship. There was also the peace in his home, the temple very often belief that certain animals possessed as part of a trinity of deities, a holy family divine powers — the cow, for example, consisting of father, mother, and child. represented fertility, the bull, virility — For much of their history, the Egyptians ‘which led to the cult of sacred animals,
September 2014 The Theosophist 23 Ancient Egyptian Religions birds, and reptiles, each of which was Lower Egypt, and different ethnic groups considered to be the manifestation on earth such as the Semites and Africans. Further, of a divine being. Hence the thousands all forty-two provinces had differences of mummified ibises, baboons, and in speech, ways of life, customs, and crocodiles that have been found all over religions. In each province, town, and Egypt. Inside the temples, the Egyptians village religion took on a special form kept real live cats, bulls, ibises, or hawks peculiar to that particular place. Each and worshipped them as gods; and when locality had its own deity, who was often they died, mummified and buried them as worshipped in a way that was special to they did their kings. him or her, and who was often equipped The third type of god worshipped by with myths and legends of his or her own. the ancient Egyptians was the cosmic god During periods of unrest or when there — moon, storm, wind, and especially the was a weak central government, religious sun. This type of deity represents a higher differences were intensified. However order of divine being, since it is difficult when the country was united, a strange to personalize a cosmic god, with the result process commenced. The principal deity that comprehending this type of god of the town or city that was the seat of the demands a greater degree of intellectual official royal residence became the state effort. Whereas the fetish and local gods god. His temple was visited from all parts were developed prior to 3050 BC, the of the country; he was recognized by all. cosmic gods were properly developed The fame provided to the state god caused during the historic era after 3000 BC, other towns to wish for a god of such as evidenced by the stunning monu- distinction. And so they either introduced ments and temples at Karnak, Luxor, and the worship of the state god into their own Abu Simbel. temples, or they ‘discovered’ that he was During the historic period, the sun in reality one and the same god as their in particular became a universal god, own local deity; and the two deities would worshipped throughout the land; and with be blended into one — for example Amun- the founding of the Egyptian state during Ra, King of the Gods. He not only had a Dynasty I, with the union of Upper and vast temple dedicated to him at Karnak Lower Egypt, it was elevated to the status on the east bank of the Nile, but his jurisdic- of state god. Despite the existence of both tion also extended to the vast necropolis a state god and local gods, the Egyptians (City of the Dead) on the west bank, best thought it perfectly normal to worship all known to tourists as the Valley of the Kings at once. and Valley of the Queens. Tutankhamen’s The peculiar characteristics of the land tomb was found here, Tut-Ankh-Amun in which the Egyptians lived, influenced meaning, Living Image of Amun. their religion by diversifying it. There As a uniform way of life developed in were two distinct halves, Upper and Egypt, this process of merging deities,
24 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Ancient Egyptian Religions called syncretism, should logically have inhabitants to be practical. The Egyptians led to the blending of all the gods and therefore tended not to indulge in any great goddesses of Egypt into one god with a flights of fancy. They were parochial: very long name made up of all the syllables their eyes were turned on their neigh- of the names of all the other gods. How- bourhood. In spite of their narrow, inward- ever, the Egyptians were not the most looking way of life, many Egyptians logical of people, and this ‘happy’ state must have posed the eternal, universal was never attained. questions — who created the world? and The Egyptians thought the Nile came the sun and the stars? who created life from the place where the world began. on earth, both animal and human? what Accordingly they oriented themselves to- happens when one dies? — and found wards the cavern at Aswan where the Nile acceptable answers to their questions by has its mythological source. The mytho- conceiving gods and a religion that were logical cause of the annual flooding, the developed directly from their own Inundation, was the goddess Isis, weeping experience of life as they lived it in the copious tears into the Nile, in commem- land of Egypt. oration of her dear, dead husband, Osiris. The great number of gods worshipped Considering that the Nile was so vital to in ancient Egypt meant that there was the Egyptians, it is surprising that this great no one version of the answers to these river was not elevated to the position of questions. Egyptian religion seems to com- the most important god in the land. In fact, prise many religious beliefs. One of the the Nile as such was not deified at all. reasons is that the Egyptians, conser- Instead it was represented by Hapy, the vative as they were, never discarded any Spirit or Essence of the Nile. Many are of their old beliefs in favour of new ones; the figures of Hapy that can be seen in they simply assimilated them. They were temples: he is depicted as a man with a quite content to have several different pendulous belly (always a sign of a explanations for the same thing, for each prosperous and well-fed man to the ancient explanation might serve in different Egyptians, a man to be respected) and the contexts. There were, for instance, several breasts of a woman. variations on the theme of the creation of The characteristics peculiar to the land the world, for the great creator gods such of Egypt — long narrow valley surrounded as Atum, Ra, Ptah, and Neit each had his by desert, a river which ensured a plentiful or her own version. supply of water, and fertile soil, made the But whichever deity performed the act ancient Egyptians into a highly con- of creation, there was one underlying servative, parochial, even complacent image: in the beginning, water covered the society. They lived in a land that was earth and all was dark and void. This productive, but nevertheless demanded primordial water was called the Nun, and constant hard work, and forced its it is a natural image for the Egyptians to
September 2014 The Theosophist 25 Ancient Egyptian Religions have conjured up. They must have seen or more devout, godly, humble, spiritual, their land covered by water during the or pure in heart. It simply means that Inundation, and have seen, when the flood- Egyptian history was the story of the water began to recede, little islands of land interplay between gods and kings; that for began to emerge from the primordial waters much of that history the economy of of the Nun. Egypt was organized around the temples; There were many ideas of what the that religious beliefs affected the way in universe was. The sky was visualized as which the Egyptians dealt with death. a cow whose feet rested on the earth At the same time there was a private (Hathor); or as a woman who supported religion. Because ordinary Egyptians had herself with hands and feet on the earth no admittance to the innermost areas of a (Nut). The sky was said to be a sheet of temple, the only opportunity they were water on which the stars sailed in boats, given to behold the deity came when the just as the Egyptians themselves sailed on cult statue, which was normally kept in the Nile. Or else the sky rested on four the temple’s innermost sanctuary, was fabulous mountains situated at the four brought out of its shrine on the occasion corners of the earth — the pillars of of one of the great festivals that took place heaven. The sun was said to be the right at certain times of the year; and carried in eye of a great god whose left eye was the procession around the town for the moon (Atum; Ra). It was born every edification of the populace. Whereas the morning as the calf of the celestial cow; Egyptians erected official temples for local or as the child of the Sky Goddess. It was and universal gods, private individuals had rolled across the sky by a beetle (Khepri) their own beliefs, their own private god until in the evening it became an old man or gods, and were happy to construct with (Atum). The sun, moon, and the stars their own hands small shrines near their were said to sail in ships over the heavenly houses for their personal gods to whom ocean. There was said to be a second heaven they could turn for aid and comfort. under the earth; through this heaven a river Meanwhile the official state religion ran just as the Nile runs through Egypt. of Egypt concerned itself with promoting Every night, the sun descended under the the well-being of the gods, which they earth, where it traversed the underworld reciprocated by maintaining the estab- Nile. And every morning, it ascended the lished order of the world. The vehicle earth again through two whirlpools at through which the gods received favour, Elephantine (Aswan). and in turn dispensed it, was the king, Religion pervaded every aspect of life aided by a hierarchy of priests. One of the in ancient Egypt, apparently making the important aspects of Egyptian religion was Egyptians into a very religion-ridden the fact that the king was regarded as a society. However this does not mean that god. Tradition stated that in the beginning, they were more pious than other people, kingship came to the earth in the shape
26 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Ancient Egyptian Religions of the god-king, Ra, who brought his the word ‘temple’ meant to the ancient daughter, Maat, the embodiment of Truth Egyptians and what it means to us today. and Justice with him. Thus the beginning Egyptian temples symbolized the earth; the of the world was synchronous with the ceilings of the temples were painted with beginning of kingship and social order. stars to represent the firmament. Recent The pharaohs of Egypt legitimized visitors to the Valley of the Kings in Thebes their claim to the throne in ways that were will remember seeing striking ceiling influenced by religious beliefs. The god- murals of the sky in some well preserved king Horus (the falcon one sees on the tombs such as that of Rameses IX. The tail fins of Egypt Air) was the son of the temple walls were decorated at the base god Osiris, who had been king; and so with carvings of the marsh plants and reeds every new king of Egypt became a Horus that grew on the banks of the Nile. to his predecessor’s Osiris. Theology was The Egyptians believed that the earth another means through which this was was constantly threatened with forces of accomplished. Here, the principal god of chaos that had existed before the world the time was said to have assumed the was created; they had been overcome but form of the reigning king in order to beget were an ever-present danger; only the a child by his queen; that child later gods could keep them at bay. These gods claimed to be the offspring of both his appeared in different guises all over earthly and his heavenly father. Egypt, where they had to be equipped The king was the unifying factor in with homes — temples, the mansions of Egyptian religious life. In theory he was the gods. Inside these houses, the gods chief priest in every temple. Obviously the could be protected and nourished so that king could not be in every temple at once. they could perform their divine tasks. However this fiction was maintained in the From the beginning of the historic reliefs one sees carved on the walls of period, circa 3000 BC, which was also the temples which always show the king beginning of writing there (think of it in making offerings to the gods. The king the context of the birth of Mahavira circa was the embodiment of the connection 500 BC), there were two distinct types of between the world of men and the world temples in Egypt: the memorial or funerary of gods, the lynchpin of Egyptian society. temple, dedicated to the worship of a dead It was his task to make the world go on king; and the cult temple, dedicated to the functioning; it was his task to make the worship of one or more of the many deities sun rise and set, the Nile to flood and ebb, of Egypt. A supreme example of the for- the grain to grow; all of which could only mer is Abu Simbel and of the latter is Karnak. be achieved by the performance of the Each type of temple owned property and proper rituals within the temples. estates which rendered the temple self- It is perhaps appropriate here to point supporting but also produced great wealth. out the vast differences between what The cult temple, especially, played an
September 2014 The Theosophist 27 Ancient Egyptian Religions important part in the life of the community. because congregations of worshippers did However, for the ordinary person its role not feature in the life of an Egyptian was not that of a place of worship. The temple. They were not expected to be Egyptian temple was nothing like a derasar, authorities on religious doctrine, for there church, mosque or synagogue. It was not was none. There was no central system a place to which one might go for spiritual of religious belief or organization. Each comfort, to praise god, to discuss theologic- town had its own, and so the priesthood al points or to be instructed in religious of any temple followed the customs and matters. Although some temples were practices peculiar to the temple. equipped with special areas where an A majority of the priests in a temple ordinary person might speak to the god, were part-time laymen, who after their normally cult temples were concerned period of temple service, went back to their with the religion of the state and the homes to carry on normal life. In theory, maintenance of the bureaucracy. the king appointed all priests; and in every Ancient Egyptian temples were big temple in the land, they served as his business. The temple was a landowner; surrogates. A career in the priesthood was the ordinary Egyptian could and did rent open to women also. Important positions, land from it. It was the repository for legal notably those of the goddess Hathor, were documents, the place where births and occupied by women, although most priest- marriages were registered and contracts esses acted as musicians and enchantresses. drawn up. Schools were centered on To become a priest, a man did not have temples; scribes, artists, and doctors were to have any special calling or gift for trained there. Some temples even had religion. His task was that of administrator hospitals within their precincts. Surgery, of temple property, estates, and revenues; including prosthetic surgery was practised and within the temple his function was as there. Annual taxation was determined by a domestic servant to the god, ministering the temples’ sacred lakes’ ‘Nileometer’ to his daily needs. This was the case whether which measured the level of the annual the god was a living animal or bird kept flood, and hence the likely grain harvest. in the temple as the representative on earth There are many parallels with our Oshwal of a god, or a golden effigy of the deity. Mahajanwadi in Ngara, Nairobi. The one stipulation for entry to the tem- Just as the Egyptian temple was unlike ple was that a man, or woman, be pure. anything modern man understands by the To achieve the required purity a priest word ‘temple’, so an Egyptian ‘priest’ was (or priestess) had to purify himself for not like the modern concept of a spiritual several days before entering a temple by leader; neither was he a recognized chewing natron (bicarbonate of soda) authority on religious law. They were not and fumigating himself with incense. preachers and did not have parishioners. On the day that he entered the temple, They were not deliverers of sermons he had to wash himself, cut his finger
28 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Ancient Egyptian Religions and toe nails, and in the case of a priest, to the god and the god reciprocates in be shaved and depilated of all body hair. kind. Thus, for example, if the king offers Very much like the sky-clad Jain monks! the god fruit, the god in turn rewards the Male priests had to be circumcised. Neither king with the gift of the orchards that priests nor priestesses were required to produce the fruit. All this makes Egyptian lead celibate lives outside the temple. religion sound less than spiritual. In many But they had to be prepared to observe ways it was. On the other hand there is the prohibitions — observed by their evidence, from texts which exhort priests particular temple. The advantages of being to live in accordance with high moral a priest were many, including a share principles, that spiritual ideals were not from the income from temple estates, entirely absent from Egyptian religious life. exemption from certain taxes, and im- The Egyptians had a very relaxed munity from state labour such as work on attitude towards their gods. They regarded dykes and canals. their deities as a class of beings much like There was no rigid division between themselves; they had the same need for the sacred and secular world in Egypt. The food and drink; they would suffer pain, secular world viewed the temples as places age, or death; they had the same vices and of business. The priests of the temples virtues, they were just as apt to commit worked to maintain the equilibrium between acts of folly, treachery, or trickery. How- the world of the gods and the world of ever their lapses did not earn them scorn men. The worship of gods therefore, was from their worshippers, instead, they just one of the many activities under- merely moved the Egyptians to treat their taken by temple bureaucracy, which was gods in a tolerantly amused manner and, also responsible for many of the func- as might be expected from an agricultural tions that nowadays would come within people, often to describe their activities the province of local government or com- in a frank and earthy way. munity organization. In spite of this, the gods of ancient However the worship of gods was the Egypt were beings to be respected, for it chief raison d’étre for the existence of the was only through their beneficence and temples. Hymns of praise were sung to goodwill that Egypt prospered, as she the gods. However the Egyptians adopted undoubtedly did, for over three thousand a businesslike approach to their prayers years — arguably one of the longest which were made in the spirit of quid pro uninterrupted civilizations the world has quo. The priest or the king makes an offering ever known. ²
The principle which gives life dwells in us and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen, or smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception. The Idyll of the White Lotus
September 2014 The Theosophist 29 The Number Seven and our Society The Number Seven and our Society
H. P. BLAVATSKY
THE thoughtful reader must have life insurance rests upon the calculated pondered well over the mysterious import expectancy of life on the average at certain that the number Seven seems to have ages; and, while nothing is so uncertain always had among the ancients, as as the probable longevity of any single succinctly epitomized in our June number, individual in a community, nothing is as well as the theory of cycles, discussed more certain than that the probable life- in the July issue. [Both issue are available chance of any one person, in the mass of on the web at:
Reprinted from the September 1880 issue of The Theosophist.
30 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Number Seven and our Society solemnity and mystical significance has and on the 19th — the seventeenth day been given the Number Seven among from our landing in England, we got to all people, at all times. It now remains for sea. On March 2 — seventeen days after us to cite, from the experience of the reaching Bombay — we removed to the Theosophical Society, some facts which bungalows where we have ever since been indicate how its power has manifested living. On the 23rd March, thirty-five itself with us. Continually our experiences (7 x 5) days after landing, Colonel Olcott have been associated with Seven or some delivered his first public oration on combination or multiple of it. And it must Theosophy, at Framji Cowasji Institute, be remembered that, in not a single Bombay. On July 7, the first Prospectus, instance, was there any intention that the announcing the intended foundation of the number should play a part in our affairs; THEOSOPHIST was written; on the 27th but, on the contrary, what happened was September, the first ‘form’ was made up at in many cases exactly the reverse of what the printing-office, and on October 1 — our we desired. It was only the other day that 227th in lndia — the magazine appeared. we began to take any note of the striking But we anticipate events. In the beginn- chain of circumstances, and some have ing of April, last year, Colonel Olcott only been recalled now at the moment and the Conductor of this magazine went of writing. to the N. W. Provinces to meet Swami The two chief founders of our Society Dayanand, and were absent from the were the President, Colonel Olcott, and Headquarters thirty-seven days, and the Conductor of this Magazine. When visited seven different cities during the they made each other’s acquaintance (in trip. In December of that year we again 1874), the office number of the former went northward, and on the 21st (7 x 3) was seven, the house number of the latter of that month, a special meeting of the seventeen. The President’s Inaugural Society of Benares Pandits was held to Address before the Society was delivered greet Colonel Olcott and elect him an on November 17, 1875; the Headquarters Honorary Member in token of the were established in the 47th street, (the friendliness of the orthodox Hindu pandits up-town streets in New York are all for our Society — a most important event. designated by numbers), and Colonel Coming down to the Ceylon [Sri Lanka] Olcott’s office was removed to 7l Broad- trip, we find, on consulting the diary, that way. On the 17th December 1878, our our party sailed from Bombay, May 7, the delegates to India sailed for London: the steamer starting her engines at 7:7 am. voyage, owing to storms and fogs, lasted We reached Point de Galle on the 17th. seventeen days; on the 17th January, 1879, At the first meeting in Ceylon of can- we left London for Liverpool to take the didates for initiation, a group of seven steamer for Bombay, got on board the persons presented themselves. At Pana- next day, but lay all night in the Mersey, dure, seven were also initiated first, the
September 2014 The Theosophist 31 The Number Seven and our Society evening proving so boisterous and stormy to seven. Two more fully intended to come that the rest could not leave their houses. home from Galle by the vessel of the At Colombo, fourteen (7 x 2) were ini- 7th July, but, as it turned out, she did not tiated the first night, while, at the prelim- touch there and so, perforce, our band of inary meeting to organize the local branch seven came together on the 12th — the temporarily, there were twenty-seven. At fifty-seventh day after our landing. The Kandy, seventeen comprised the first sea voyage from Ceylon to Bombay may body of candidates. Returning to Colombo, be said to begin upon leaving Colombo, we organized the ‘Lanka Theosophical since the run from Galle to that port is in Society’, a scientific branch, on the 17th Ceylonese waters. From friends — five of the month, and on the evening, when laymen and two priests — again seven the Panadure branch was formed, thirty- — who came aboard at Columbo to bid five names (7 x 5) were registered as us farewell, we learned that the July follows. Seven priests were initiated here THEOSOPHIST had reached there, and during this second visit, and at Bentota, being naturally anxious to see a copy, where we tarried to organize a branch, urgently requested that one should be sent there were again seven priests admitted. us to look at, if possible, before 5 o’clock Thirty-five (7 x 5) members organized pm, the hour at which it was thought we the Matara branch; and here again the would leave port. This was promised us, priests taken into fellowship numbered and, after our friends left, we watched every seven. So, too, at Galle, twenty-seven craft that came from shore. Five o’clock persons were present on the night of the came, then six and half-past six, but no organization — the rest being unavoidably messenger or magazine for us. At last, absent; and at Welitara the number was precisely, at seven, one little canoe was twenty-one, or three times seven. Upon seen tossing in the heavy sea that was counting up the entire number of lay running; she approached, was alongside; Buddhists included in our seven Ceylon on her bows, painted on a white ground branches, that are devoted to the interests was the Number Seven; a man climbed of that faith, we find our mystical num- over the ship’s rail, and in his hand was ber seven occupying the place of units, the paper we were waiting for! When the and what adds to the singularity of the anchor was up and the pilot’s bell rang fact is that the same is the case with for starting the engines, two of our party the sum total of priests who joined our ran to look at the ship’s clock: it stood at Parent Society. seven minutes past 7 pm. Our septenary fatality followed us all At Tuticorin, Mr Padshah, one of our throughout the return voyage to Bombay. party, went ashore as his desire was to Of the Delegation, two members, having return by rail to Bombay, so as to see urgent business, took an earlier steamer Southern India; the little boat in which he from Colombo, thus reducing our number went ashore we noticed, after she had got
32 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 The Number Seven and our Society clear from the crowd of craft alongside, thus ended on the 24th of July, the seventy- bore the number forty-seven. Going down seventh day after the one on which we had the coast on our outward voyage, our sailed for Ceylon. To ascribe to mere steamer touched at fourteen (7 x 2) ports; coincidence this strange, if not altogether coming home, our vessel, owing to the unprecedented, concatenation of events, monsoon weather and the heavy surf along in which the Number Seven was, as the the Malabar Coast, visited only seven. And, astrologers might call it ‘in the ascendant’, finally, as though to show us that our would be an absurdity. The most super- septenate destiny was not to be evaded, it ficial examination of the doctrine of was at exactly seven o’clock — as the log chance will suffice to show that. And, if, of the S.S. Chanda shows — when we indeed, we must admit that some mys- sighted the pilot off Bombay harbour, at terious law of numerical potentialities is 7.27 the bell rang to slow down the asserting itself in shaping the fortunes of engine; at 7.47 the pilot stepped on the the Theosophical Society, whither shall ‘bridge’ and took command of the ship, we turn for an explanation but to those and, at 9.37, our anchor was dropped off ancient Asiatic philosophies which were the Apollo Bunder, and our voyage was built upon the bedrock of Occult Science?
It is said that the average number of lives spent on earth between individualization and the attainment of Adeptship is about 777. Out of these about 700 are spent in acquiring experiences in the savage and semi-civilized conditions, about 70 in acquiring experiences in civilized conditions and perfecting the moral nature, and the last 7 in treading the Path which leads to Adeptship. Self-Culture in the Light of the Ancient Wisdom I. K. Taimni
September 2014 The Theosophist 33 Theosophical Work around the World Theosophical Work around the World
European Congress spoke first on quantum physics, and then The 37th European Congress was held explored how it is coherent with Indian from 30 July to 3 August 2014 in Paris, philosophical view. Dr Muriel Pécastaing- France, at the Adyar Theatre and the Boissière, TS member, senior lecturer, premises of the TS in France. The theme, and historian at the Sorbonne University, ‘Bridging Science and Spirituality’, France, spoke about Annie Besant’s search attracted more than 180 participants from for truth using scientific methods. Mr Luc twenty-three countries and was covered Lambs, TS member, senior scientist and by eighteen speakers, among them the researcher at Toulouse University, France, international President, Mr Tim Boyd, and explored astrophysics and ecology with several scientists from other countries. the help of occult chemistry. The Congress provided a holistic and Ms Trân-Thi-Kim-Diêu, Chairperson multifaceted overview of the subject, testi- of the European Theosophical Federation fying that ‘science is our best ally’. It took and the General Secretary of the French place in a warm and earnest atmosphere, Section, explored the theme of the Con- was well received, and the participants left gress by suggesting that the bridge between with many new lines of thought for future science and spirituality can be found in studies. It was also a memorable gather- philosophy. Additional speakers included ing for both members and sympathizers, Mr Antonio Girardi, GS of the Italian helping to strengthen friendships and create Section; Mr Colin Price, GS of the English new ones. Section; and Mrs Sabine Van Osta, GS of The Congress talks were given in the Belgian Section. Other TS members English or French with translation pro- who spoke included Mrs Graciela Ricci, jected simultaneously on a screen on the semiologist from Italy; Dr José Foglia, stage. The President gave two lectures. In neuroscientist from Uruguay, and Mr the first one he showed how spirituality and Jacques Mahnich, aeronautical engineer modern science are in harmony, differing from France. only in terminology. In the second he shed Short talks were delivered by Ms Els light on the basic concepts of Theosophy. Rijneker, GS of the Dutch Section; Mr Andrej Detela, Slovenian scientist Mr Wim Leys, Vice General Secretary of and writer, delved deeply in his two the Dutch Section; Mrs Tarja Pursi, Vice lectures into the nature of silence and General Secretary of the Finnish Sec- perception of time. Mr Ulrich Mohrhoff, tion. Other TS members giving short physicist and researcher from India, talks included Dr Nilda Venegas Bernal,
34 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Theosophical Work around the World
Members of the European Theosophical Congress held from 30 July to 3 August in Paris, France
French TOS President, Mr Michel Chapotin, hands over the teddies to Mrs Svitlana Gavrylenko, the head of the Ukrainian delegation, while our International TOS President, Tim Boyd, shows a bilingual message addressed to the Ukrainians saying, ‘Fraternal kisses to you all from your French sisters and brothers’
September 2014 The Theosophist 35 Theosophical Work around the World
Members of the International Education Conference held in July at ‘Olcott’, the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Amercia
TSA National Secretary, Mr David Bruce, with Ms Danelys Valcarcel, and Mr Walter Terpack
36 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Theosophical Work around the World psychiatrist from Spain; Mrs Maria João course. Therefore TOS members in France Figueira, chemical engineer from Portu- knitted teddies for them. When a delega- gal; and Elvira Carbonell, a resident worker tion of ten Ukrainians was in Paris for the at the national headquarters of the TS TS European Congress in late July, the in America. French members handed over 175 hand- During the Congress, a well-known knitted teddies. and talented Russian pianist, Ekaterina Derzhavina, gave an exceptional piano USA recital of J. S. Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’. In July, the Theosophical Society in Italian, French, and Finnish members America hosted a four-day educational gave an entertainment programme, cul- conference called ‘Education for a New minating with the performance of the Humanity.’ The idea for the conference European anthem, Beethoven’s ‘Ode to came from Ms Danelys Valcarcel, a Joy’, by Laurent Cabanel, a professional resident worker at the TSA national lyric artist. headquarters, as a project that she con- At the closing it was announced that ceived while attending a training session the next European Congress will be at the Krotona School of Theosophy in organized by the Spanish Section in 2017. Ojai, California. Representatives from The Congress programme was live- the Montessori, Waldorf, Krishnamurti, streamed over the Internet and videos of Theosophical, and Raja Yoga schools the lectures, opening, and closing can be were invited to share their teaching watched at http://vimeo.com/efts/videos. methods with an enthusiastic group of All videos can also be accessed on the forty-five participants. The conference website of the EFTS at http://ts-efts.org/ included lectures, slide shows, discussion where, in addition to lectures, photos and groups, and a panel discussion. news of the Congress were published. National Secretary David Bruce gave a presentation called ‘Theosophy Behind TOS in Ukraine Bars’, in which he described the work of The Theosophical Order of Service the TSA prison program. A special guest in Ukraine has five branches. The Kiev appearance was made by Walter Terpack, branch has adopted a refugee camp set up a TSA member for several years, who parti- to look after both Ukrainian and Russian cipated in the prison program for three families fleeing the eastern regions of years before his release last year. Mr Ukraine, where there is military tension Terpack testified to the transformative with Russia. The members have been power of Theosophy and the importance busily collecting and delivering clothing of the prison program in reaching out to and household goods to the camp. The men and women who are incarcerated children particularly appreciate toys, of across the country.
September 2014 The Theosophist 37 Index APRIL TO SEPTEMBER 2014 Key: A=April, M=May, Jn=June, Jy=July, Au=August, S=September
Ancient Egyptian Religions S22 JINARÂJADÂSA, DOROTHY Ketan Shah Let Us not Settle Down Au27 ANDERSON, MARY KRISHNAPHANI The many lives of Siddhartha A7 Regenerating Wisdom A21 The Dream of Ravan and the KYNASTON, DIANNE K. Constitution of Man Jy6 The Heart Sutra Jy17 BLAVATSKY, H. P. Let Every Moment be a New Dawn Jn18 The Number Seven and our Society S30 S. Sundaram BOYD, TIM Let Us not Settle Down Au27 Illumined Mind Au3 Dorothy Jinarâjadâsa Inaugural Address Jn3 On the Watch-Tower M3, Jy3, S3 LINDEMANN, RICARDO The Urgency for a New Mind A32 BURNIER, RADHA Opening of the Springbrook Centre: MAITHREYA, SUNITA Charles Webster Leadbeater and On Wisdom Jn25 Adyar Day A18 Charles Webster Leadbeater and Adyar Day A18 Sunita Maithreya Many lives of Siddhartha, The A7 Mary Anderson CODD, CLARA MENON, DEVDAS The Voice of the Silence — I,– V Exploring ‘Self-Awareness’ with the Youth M26 A13, M9, Jn13, Jy21 MOORTHY, DAKSHINA G. Convention Rates Au35 No Effort is Lost Towards Pursuing Cosmic Weft, The Au23 Noble Intentions Jn33 Pradeep Talwalker No Effort is Lost Towards Pursuing Dream of Ravan and the Constitution of Noble Intentions Jn33 Man, The Jy6 G. Dakshina Moorthy Mary Anderson Number Seven and our Society, The S30 Exploring ‘Self-Awareness’ with the Youth M26 H. P. Blavatsky Devdas Menon OLIVEIRA, PEDRO Fragments of the Ageless Wisdom Jy26, Au30 ‘A Power that Maketh All Things New’ Jn8 GREEN, CATY On the Watch-Tower A3 The Race to the Sixth Race Jy32 M. P. Singhal Heart Sutra, The Jy17 On the Watch-Tower M3, Jy3, S3 Dianne K. Kynaston Tim Boyd I am the Path, the Truth, and the Life M15 Opening of the Springbrook Centre: Tran-Thi-Kim-Dieu On Wisdom Jn25 Illumined Mind, The Au3 Radha Burnier Tim Boyd PACHAURI, R. K. Inaugural Address Jn3 Sustainability: The World’s Biggest Tim Boyd Challenge — I & II Jy12, Au18 Integrity and Moral Values Au31 ‘Power that Maketh All Things New, A’ Jn8 Kalpana H. Rawal Pedro Oliveira
38 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 Index
Presidential Election 2014 M34 Sustainability: The World’s Biggest Race to the Sixth Race, The Jy32 Challenge — I & II Jy12, Au18 Caty Green R. K. Pachauri RAVEENDRAN, M. A. TALWALKER, PRADEEP Spiritual Ascent of Man in Secret The Cosmic Weft Au23 Doctrine A28 Theosophical Work around the World RAWAL, KALPANA H. Jn36, Jy36, Au36, S34 Integrity and Moral Values Au31 There is No Psychological Evolution Au11 Realizing the Self Jn30 Pablo Sender Pradip Satpathy TRAN-THI-KIM-DIEU Regenerating Wisdom A21 I am the Path, the Truth, and the Life M15 Krishnaphani Urgency for a New Mind, The A32 Regeneration of the Theosophical Society Jy27 Ricardo Lindemann Tim Wyatt VENEGAS BERNAL, NILDA SATPATHY, PRADIP What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: The Mind at Present S19 Realizing the Self Jn30 Visionary World of Stockhausen, The S7 Self-Realization and Meaningful life M5 Alan Senior M. P. Singhal Voice of the Silence, The — II – V SENDER, PABLO A13, M9, Jn13, Jy21 There is No Psychological Evolution Au11 Clara Codd SENIOR, ALAN VORA, BHUPENDRA R. The Visionary World of Stockhausen S7 White Lotus Day — Tribute to Madame SHAH, KETAN Blavatsky M21 Ancient Egyptian Religions S22 What Science has Contributed to Spirituality: SINGHAL, M. P. The Mind at Present S19 On the Watch-Tower A3 Nilda Venegas Bernal Self-Realization and Meaningful life M5 White Lotus Day — Tribute to Spiritual Ascent of Man in Secret Doctrine A28 Madame Blavatsky M21 M. A. Raveendran Bhupendra R. Vora SUNDARAM, S. WYATT, TIM Let Every Moment be a New Dawn Jn18 Regeneration of the Theosophical Society Jy27
The School of the Wisdom sessions at Adyar are planned to be held as follows: ♦ Nov. 3 to 14, 2014, ‘The Voice of the Silence’, Dir.: Prof. R. C. Tampi. ♦ Nov. 17 to 28, ‘The Psychology of Yoga’, Dir.: Mr P. K. Jayaswal. ♦ Dec. 1 to 12, ‘Self-transformation and the Spiritual Life’, Dir.: Mr Vincente Hao Chin, Jr. ♦ Jan. 5 to 16, 2015, ‘The Science of Theosophy: Foundation and Practice’. Dir.: Ms Tran-Thi-Kim-Dieu. Class timings are Monday to Friday, from 8.30 to 11 am and 3.30 to 5 pm, with meditation from 8 to 8.30 am. For more detailed information please visit our website at
September 2014 The Theosophist 39 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Email address [email protected] [email protected] Theosofi The Indian Theosophist Gangleri Teozófia Ilisos Adyar Le Lotus Bleu Teosofi The Light Bearer Chilena Revista Teosófica Selección Teosófica Sophia The West African Theosophist The West Theosofie Adyar Teozofija The Theosophical Light The South African Theosophist Le Lotus Bleu Theosophy in Australia Magazine Newsletter Teosofía en Argentina en Teosofía … Rosario … ška ulica 24, 10000 Zagreb … Voukourestiou St., 106 71-Athens St., Voukourestiou … Jakarta 11410, Timur Helsinki San Juan Puerto Rico Apartado 23 00926 CEP 70200-630 Brasilia (DF) Boisbriand QC., J7H 1K7 Estacion Central, Santiago Barrio Palermo, Bogotá Managua, Nicaragua Bagmari Road, Kolkata 700 054 Sims Avenue Centre, Singapore 387 603 Avenue Sims Ronean, 38 Princesses Ave., Windsor E. 2194Windsor Ave., Ronean, 38 Princesses … eosofinen Seura, Vironkatu 7 C 2, Fin 00170,Vironkatu eosofinen Seura, … The Theosophical Society, Varanasi 221 010Varanasi Theosophical Society, The … Oberbaumgarten 25, 4204 Haibach im Mühlkreis … Address … Santiago 257 — 2000, I N T E R A O L D C Y
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1919
1954 1902
1997
1919
1897 1896 1913 1935
1948
1924 1933
1921
1925
2012 2013
1910 1992 1921
1926
1895 1910
1997 T 2013 1886 USA … Mr 1925
1922 W
Dateto refers the date of formation
The Council of the European Federation of National Societies: Inter-American Theosophical Inter-American Federation: Indo-Pacific Theosophical Federation: Pan-African Theosophical Federation:
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42 The Theosophist Vol. 135.12 RECENT REPRINTS
THE THEOSOPHIC LIFE Annie Besant In this little booklet, a distinguished Theosophist inspires us with fresh energy and determination to carry out theosophical teachings in everyday life. She tells us how to live wisely by understanding the principles of Reincarnation, Karma, and Service. AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER (Miniature Edition) J. Krishnamurti This miniature edition of one of the three Theosophical classics is invaluable to aspirants on the spiritual path. It contains teachings given to a young pupil by his guru in preparation for discipleship. FORTHCOMING REPRINTS
THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A. P. SINNETT — in Chronological Sequence Vic Hao Chin, Jr This book is one of the classics of Theosophical literature, based on the extensive research of George Linton and Virginia Hanson. The depth of the teachings therein have been a source of inspiration to students all over the world. THE DIVINE PLAN A Commentary on H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine Geoffrey A. Barborka This work is written in the form of a commentary on H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. It is hoped that those who follow this guidebook will acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. MAN, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE — Examples of Different Types of Men as Seen by Means of Trained Clairvoyance C. W. Leadbeater The author examines different planes of existence, giving broad principles essential for the understanding of those not familar with theosophical literature.
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