Saturday, January 27, 2018

Did Not Last

“After Helena Blavatsky's death in 1891, the Society's leaders seemed at first to work together peacefully. This did not last long. Judge was accused by Olcott and then prominent Theosophist Annie Besant of forging letters from the Mahatmas; he ended his association with Olcott and Besant in 1895 and took most of the Society's American Section with him. The original organisation led by Olcott and Besant remains today based in India and is known as the Theosophical Society – Adyar. The group led by Judge further splintered into a faction led by Katherine Tingley, and another associated with Judge's secretary Ernest Temple Hargrove. While Hargrove's faction no longer survives, the faction led by Tingley is today known as the Theosophical Society with the clarifying statement, "International Headquarters, Pasadena, California". A third organization, the United Lodge of Theosophists or ULT, in 1909 split off from the latter organization.

In 1902, Rudolf Steiner became General Secretary of the German-Austrian division of the Theosophical Society. He maintained a Western-oriented course, relatively independent from the Adyar headquarters. After serious philosophical conflicts with Annie Besant and other members of the international leadership on the spiritual significance of Christ and on the status of the young boy Jiddu Krishnamurti, most of the German and Austrian members split off in 1913 and formed the Anthroposophical Society. The latter remains active today and has branches in several countries, including the US and Canada.

The English headquarters of the Theosophical Society are at 50 Gloucester Place, London. The Theosophical Society in Ireland  based in Pembroke Road, Dublin, is a wholly independent organisation which claims to have received its charter directly from Helena Blavatsky. The original group contained (among others) George William Russell (A. E.) poet and mystic, and the leadership role later fell to Russell's friend P. G. Bowen, (author and teacher of practical occultism) and later still to Bowen's long time student Dorothy Emerson. The current leadership of this group were students of Emerson. The independent Dublin organisation should not be confused with a similarly named group affiliated to Adyar which is based in Belfast but claims an all-Ireland jurisdiction.

In addition to the stated objectives, as early as 1889 Blavatsky publicly declared that the purpose of establishing the Society was to prepare humanity for the reception of a World Teacher: according to the Theosophical doctrine described above, a manifested aspect of an advanced spiritual entity (the Maitreya) that periodically appears on Earth in order to direct the evolution of humankind. The mission of these reputedly regularly appearing emissaries is to practically translate, in a way and language understood by contemporary humanity, the knowledge required to propel it to a higher evolutionary stage.
If the present attempt, in the form of our Society, succeeds better than its predecessors have done, then it will be in existence as an organized, living and healthy body when the time comes for the effort of the XXth century. The general condition of men's minds and hearts will have been improved and purified by the spread of its teachings, and, as I have said, their prejudices and dogmatic illusions will have been, to some extent at least, removed. Not only so, but besides a large and accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new torch-bearer of Truth. He will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path. Think how much one, to whom such an opportunity is given, could accomplish. Measure it by comparison with what the Theosophical Society actually has achieved in the last fourteen years, without any of these advantages and surrounded by hosts of hindrances which would not hamper the new leader.

This was repeated by then prominent Theosophist Annie Besant in 1896, five years after Blavatsky's death.  Besant, who became President of the Society in 1907, thought the appearance of the World Teacher would happen sooner than the time-frame in Blavatsky's writings, who had indicated that it would not take place until the last quarter of the 20th century.

One of the people who expected the imminent reappearance of the Maitreya as World Teacher was Charles Webster Leadbeater, then an influential Theosophist and occultist. In 1909 he "discovered" Jiddu Krishnamurti, an adolescent Indian boy, who he proclaimed as the most suitable candidate for the "vehicle" of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti's family had relocated next to the Theosophical Society headquarters in Adyar, India, a few months earlier.  Following his "discovery", Krishnamurti was taken under the wing of the Society, and was extensively groomed in preparation for his expected mission.

However, by 1925 Krishnamurti had begun to move away from the course expected of him by the leaders of the Theosophical Society Adyar and by many Theosophists. In 1929 he publicly dissolved the Order of the Star, a worldwide organization created by the leadership of the Theosophical Society to prepare the world for the Coming of the Maitreya, and abandoned his assumed role as the "vehicle" for the World Teacher.  He eventually left the Theosophical Society altogether, yet remained on friendly terms with individual members of the Society.  He spent the rest of his life traveling the world as an independent speaker, becoming widely known as an original thinker on spiritual, philosophical, and psychological subjects…

The following have been at many times associated, or have claimed association, with the original Theosophical Society, its philosophy, leaders, branches, or descendant organizations. Listed alphabetically”

• Agni Yoga
• Ananda College
• Anthroposophy
• Alice Bailey
• Andrei Bely
• Ascended Master Teachings
• The Bridge to Freedom
• Benjamin Creme
• Buddhist Theosophical Society (of Ceylon)
• Brother XII
• Church Universal and Triumphant
• C.W. Leadbeater
• Elizabeth Clare Prophet
• James Cousins
• Halcyon, California
• Cora Linn Daniels
• Hugh Dowding
• Thomas Edison[citation needed]
• "I AM" Activity
• Wassily Kandinsky
• Anna Kingsford
• Liberal Catholic Church
• Order of the Temple of the Rosy Cross
• Nilakanta Sri Ram
• Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi
• Nicholas Roerich
• Schola Philosophicae Initiationis
• Alexander Scriabin
• Share International
• Victor Skumin
• Vladimir Solovyov
• The Word Foundation”
~ Wikipedia

No comments:

Post a Comment