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HPB AND HER
'MASTERS' OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
THE
INFLUENCE OF ROSICRUCIANISM
AN EXTENDED FAMILY: EXTRAMURAL MASTERS
William Stainton Moses and Imperator
At this point it is
worthwhile to limn briefly those entities whose existence was claimed by, and
whose beneficence was afforded to, esotericists in
Blavatsky's and Olcott's acquaintance, and which could be considered either
cognates of the Masters or who suggest a certain air de famille. The
first, previously mentioned, is 'Imperator' and others of the spirits whose
post mortem revelations were vouchsafed to the Reverend William Stainton Moses
(1839-1892). In 1872, Moses, an Anglican curate and avid Spiritualist,
discovered that in a state of self-induced meditative trance he was able to
transmit the teachings of a small cabal of spirit guides through the technique
of automatic writing. Of the mass of necromantic revelation which grew in
the wake of Spiritualism, the 'Spirit Teachings' of 'M. A., Oxon.' (Moses'
preferred nom de plume) are quite unusual in so far as they were
profoundly dialectical and reasonably internally consistent with regard to
cosmology and theology. Imperator (together with such associates as Magus
and Prudens), espoused a neo-Gnostic cosmology and
anthropology with some profound similarities to various of the treatises from
the Corpus Hermeticum:
It may well be, good
friend, that the noblest destiny of the perfected spirit may be union with the
God into whose likeness it has grown, and whose portion of divinity,
temporarily segregated during its pilgrimage, it so renders up to Him who gave
it.
It was Imperator's
claim that a new dispensation had begun. The spirits had previously
attempted to influence the progressive development of humanity, but the time
had not been ripe: 'Efforts have been made from time to time to pour in
advanced knowledge; it has been found that the time was not come, and the
effort has been withdrawn'. Now, however, humanity itself had developed
sufficiently well to make it receptive to the presence of the spirits:
In America, the land
from which dates this movement in your days, there are many who have been so
far developed as to lead a dual life, and to hold face to face intercourse with
us. We have even now a band of workers there who are achieving results
which we cannot command here through faithlessness of mind, materiality of
interests, and even grossness of atmospheric surroundings.
One of the central
tenets of this new revelation was a form of relativism which denied
Christianity its customary claim to exclusivity. Jesus, but one of a chain
of messianic figures (beginning, importantly, in India), had himself undergone
'His preparatory training' in Egypt. Furthermore, Jesus' post-resurrection
appearances were reconstrued as archetypal figurations of the self-abnegating
munificence of the spirits:
His resurrection was
symbolic of the change that passes on the risen life of spirit ... He was
animated by that most potent law of spirit which you may trace in all the ways
of spirit-influence - the law of love ... So the souls who voluntarily linger
around your earth are those whose motive-spring is love, or they whose mission
is animated by the same master principle.
The similarities
between Moses' Imperator and Olcott's Serapis are immediately apparent.
Both claim an exalted spiritual message, and both speak of a small contingent
of humanity now sufficiently advanced (though in what way or ways remains at
this point unclear) to accept this lofty wisdom. But for all these
superficial similarities there exist very real points of divergence.
While both Serapis and Imperator select the written word as their means of
contact with their charges, Moses' communications require him to act as sole
amanuensis; whatever their provenance, the Masters' letters qua letters
retain a freer dynamic of reception. Indeed, no small part of the Theosophical
Society's attraction for potential converts was the possibility, however
remote, that such aspiring chelas might receive
similar correspondence themselves. Another significant difference between
the two entities devolves upon the associations which they will have suggested;
while Imperator is wholly associated with Spiritualism, and thus subject to
such accusations as having been the product of the suggestibility, vanity or
outright fraud of his medium, Serapis is cut from new cloth: he is
self-determining, invariably - indeed, attractively - abstruse, and hints (in
accord with Godwin's 'provocation theory') that he and his confreres are
themselves the originators of Spiritualism, a claim which robs Imperator and
others like him of any independent ontology. Though various Theosophists
over the years would be accused of having created counterfeit Masters' letters,
nonetheless the scope, geographical diffusion, variety of script, quantity of
both recipients and reputed authors (a range of Masters), and the sheer volume
of correspondence would, rightly or wrongly, mitigate against claims of
single-handed and unmodulated fraud.
By far the most
significant, if also the most obvious, difference between Imperator and Serapis
is that the former is dead and latter was, at least putatively, alive. This
last point signals the ultimate break between Theosophy, as the teachings of
live adepts, and necromantic Spiritualism. A foundational dogma of the
latter pursuit had always been that the aperture which occasioned spiritual and
extra-mundane insight was opened only after the death of the physical body.
Theosophy's radical alternative was to postulate a tremendous paradigmatic
shift in the means by which meta-empirical insight was able to penetrate the
earthly sphere. No longer did the esotericist await
death as the great occult initiation, for, with the Masters, progression to an
elevated spiritual elite was not only possible in the human frame, but regarded
as an essential, if not the essential, raison d'etre. Significant
in this altered esoteric soteriology, though somehow ignored by scholars, is
the inference that the wane of Spiritualism (as far as many esotericists
were concerned) was occasioned, not so much by its regular exposure as
fraudulent, as by the fact that post-mortem spiritual enlightenment was
apparently available to all and thus neither required nor really encouraged any
ante-mortem individually-driven change in ethical, moral or spiritual
attitudes. In fact, it could easily be argued that several of the most
celebrated spirit guides, such as Katie King, appeared to be - morally at least
- wholly undeserving of such spiritual accolades. The primary appeal of
the Theosophical Masters was that they offered themselves as living exemplars
of the heretofore hidden possibilities of rapid human advancement. That
Serapis Bey appears less than saintly is not nearly as significant as his
consistent inferences of an adept brotherhood peopled by recondite sages who have
achieved their exalted status by their own efforts. Such a proposition
also conveniently both justifies and entreats Theosophists to a zealous
evangelism; Spiritualism had no such direct mission as its credo devolved upon
a simple faith position regarding the immortality of the soul and its contact
with the living through various necromantic technologies. Theosophists'
commitment to the Masters, in contrast, was also a concomitant commitment to
their own conscious spiritual advancement through such religiously-normative
means as spiritual apprenticeship, obedience, submission to a hierarchy, and
abnegation of personal will.
Another, and
supremely utilitarian, by-product of the Masters' self-presentation and
Blavatsky's later decisive published formulation of Masters-based occultism,
was the capacity for this sagacious brotherhood to claim other spiritual
teachers and teachings as having emanated from their fraternity. This
exercise, which exceeds normal esoteric syncretism (and invariably leads to
accusations of outlandish historical revisionism), can be discerned in an early
manifestation as the 'provocation theory' wherein Spiritualism was deigned to
have been a Masters-generated phenomenon. Such a tendency was also
evident in the wholesale absorption of other Masters-cognates into the
Theosophical pantheon. Thus Olcott was able to claim that Moses' guides were
Masters, not spirits:
Who 'Imperator,' its agent, was, I known not - I do not even know who H. P.
B. really was - but I have always been inclined to believe that he was either
S. M.'s [Stainton Moses'] own Higher Self or an adept; and that 'Magus' and
others of S. M.'s band were adepts likewise.
Indeed, even the
Theosophical Master Koot Hoomi
later claimed in one of his letters to A. P. Sinnett
that Moses' spirits were in fact adepts like himself.
Frederick Hockley and the Crowned Angel
Moses was not alone
in the Spiritualist milieu for having relayed the teachings of a spirit guide
who appears in significant ways to have been similar to the Theosophical
Masters. Another of Olcott's correspondents, and a man more avowedly
ceremonial in his occultism than was the mild 'M. A. (Oxon.)', was Frederick
Hockley (1808-1885), the renowned crystallomancer and
bibliophile whose erudition in matters arcane made him something of a Victorian
esoteric paterfamilias. Just as Moses' Spiritualism can be seen as having
stood on the cusp of Theosophy, so too Hockley, by seeking to reconcile two
independent strains of the esoteric heritage - namely theurgic angelology and
Rosicrucianism - was able to establish a synthesis with surprising echoes of
the early Theosophical Masters.
Hockley's crystal
scrying exemplifies an established pattern of goetic theurgy, particularly as
it had developed in England. Where Hockley's methodology and technology
may have accorded with that of other crystallomancers,
his theoretical presuppositions were of an entirely different order.
Hockley's anthropology, as mediated to him by his favoured
'guide', the Crowned Angel of the Seventh Sphere, was profoundly
progressivist. His angelic communications, comprising a vast
literature, posit a highly optimistic perfectibilism
whereby post mortem human souls (if necessary expunged of imperfection on a
purgatorial planet) rise through seven spheres of angelic consciousness,
ultimately arriving at a 'state of bliss'. As they percolate
through the spheres such souls swell the ranks of the angels and regularly
return to earth in this guise to minister to the living as Guardian Spirits:
The number of Angels
from the Creation of the world down to the birth of Christ was continually
increased by many good men who left the Earth ... as the population increased
the number of Angels also increased from those who died ... at the present time
there are about half the number of Angels as mortals upon Earth.
Hockley sought avidly
to demarcate his angelic communications from the phenomenon of popular Spiritualism,
a practice he believed to be diabolical. For him, as for Moses, the
spirit guide (or angel) was commissioned by the divine power to elucidate these
mysteries of heavenly cosmology for purely altruistic reasons. Such a
motivation begs a further question: if post mortem progressivism is a fixed
equation, then what spiritually-educative value do such revelations contain for
mundane humanity? The inferred response is that such entities as the
Crowned Angel bestow soteriological and eschatological insights to the
'faithful' because, armed with such knowledge, those so informed will
appreciate that spiritual progression can in fact be initiated before death.
Just as Hockley
espoused a celestial progressivism, through his writings and associations he also
offered recondite testimony that a similar spiritual evolution existed on the
earth in the form and keeping of the Rosicrucian fraternity. Profoundly
influenced by the original Rosicrucian manifestoes, and convinced of a
continuing continental tradition, Hockley inquired of the Crowned Angel whether
Freemasonic initiation would be advisable in order to gain contact with
initiates. The response was not heartening:
The Society is in
France and unless you went there and were installed a Brother you could not
possible become one ... They study the occult sciences after an interview with
an invisible power, which they have at stated times. The Elders travel to
Jerusalem ... then return to the rest of the Society with the instructions they
receive from the invisible agent - upon this they act ... but in the meantime I
hope you will not join an English Lodge.
Hockley evidently
believed that some sort of Rosicrucian pedigree had existed in England but that
the majority of contemporary claimants in his country were
pretenders. Desirous of establishing a fuller picture of native
Rosicrucianism he collected the books, certificates and diaries of putative Rosicrucians, and even invoked their spirits by
crystallomancy. Significantly, his goetic researches indicated to him that
he was able to contact the spirits of the living in his crystals as well as
those of the dead, and that this may serve to explain certain of the
manifestations of Spiritualism:
The most singular
feature to me of these recent spiritual manifestations is, that the
communicants have almost invariably announced themselves as being the spirits
of deceased mortals only, and not as being spiritual intelligences who never
had been embodied on earth, whilst the existence of co-existing atmospheric spirits
of living mortals has never been alluded to as such, although, I perceive they
have in numerous instances developed themselves in the spirit circles.
It is hardly
necessary to indicate that the individuals deemed to be most capable of
producing such paranormal feats were also assumed to be those possessed of
recondite secrets gained through occult processes: in short, Rosicrucians or their ilk.
Hockley's occult cosmosophy is unusual in that there
are parallel processes of progressivism operating in the mundane and
extra-mundane realms simultaneously. Most of his energies (and questions
to the Crowned Angel) were directed at mapping the celestial realm with its
septenary system of graduated progress, but there are significant indications
within the logic of his system that a similar process of calibrated spiritual
awareness was available to the initiated elite upon the earth, and that such an
elite existed in the form of the Rosicrucian or some similar fraternity.
Hockley's model of a
synchronous initiatic progressivism in the
terrestrial as well as the celestial spheres provides an important indication
of parallel developments in the esoteric milieu of the late
nineteenth-century. That there exist resemblances between Blavatsky's
Masters and analogous entities, such as those of Moses and Hockley, is
important as a counterbalance against the prevalent view among religionist, and
even some avowedly empirical surveys, that the Theosophical Masters were a
unique development. Where Blavatsky's Masters-esotericism differed
markedly from Hockley's, however, was in the former's insistence upon an
explicit and necessary interpenetration between the terrestrial and celestial
strata. Though Hockley inferred a covalent, perhaps even symbiotic
relationship between earthly adepts and guardian angels - a relationship
whereby both parties 'pprogressed' - Blavatsky
formulated an esotericism which predicated all human progress upon the
benevolence of the Masters. Consequently, the Theosophical Masters were apotheosised as an a priori precondition of human spiritual
and physical development. Clearly it could be argued that Blavatsky had
'trumped' Moses and Hockley; her incipient Masters-cosmology wholly enveloped
such entities as the Crowned Angel and Imperator (placing them at her disposal
as crypto-Masters), and at the same time promulgated her own Masters of Wisdom
as the exclusive agents of esoteric insights and spiritual progress - with
herself as the bridge.
Emma Hardinge Britten and
the Chevalier Louis
It is crucial at this
point to recall that Blavatsky was not alone among her contemporaries in
claiming a warrant for her writings from an emissary of a secret fraternity of
adepts: she was not, to her obvious annoyance, the only such bridge. Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899), an inaugural member of the
fledgling Theosophical Society, to some degree preempted Blavatsky's 'one and
supreme great lodge [of adepts]' by asserting her own membership of a
select secret band of adepts known as the Orphic Society. Hardinge Britten claimed to have been introduced to the
group in her youth, and inducted on account of her 'somnambulistic faculties',
and to have been trained in its occult technologies by a man she initially
identified with the pseudonymous title 'Austria', and whom she later proclaimed
to have been 'Chevalier Louis de B------'. The Chevalier Louis
remains an enigmatic figure for historians of nineteenth-century
esotericism. The temptation is to dismiss him as a convenient cipher or a
romantic literary device conjured by Hardinge Britten
in her desire to systematise Spiritualism and to
endow it with both a sophisticated cosmosophy and a
teleology. That Chevalier Louis may have been more than a fictional entity
has been a rare opinion among scholars, at least until Professor Godwin's
engaging researches. Yet the precise nature of the Chevalier's identity is
of less significance than the fact that he is a remarkable anticipation of the
Theosophical Masters; unlike the disembodied spirits of Moses and Hockley, the
Chevalier is presented as a supremely talented living adept. Of
equal significance here is the motif of information transference: permission
has been granted by the Chevalier's associates and superiors for him to divulge
to a (female) disciple hitherto undisclosed arcane secrets. In return the
disciple has pledged obedience and has vowed not to reveal the adepts' mundane
identities.
During 1876 the Brittens published two books, both putatively written by
Chevalier Louis, and translated and edited for him by Emma. The first, Art
Magic, or, Mundane, Sub-Mundane, and Super-Mundane Spiritism, though for
the most part a belaboured survey of late mediaeval
evocatory and theurgical texts, does contain certain philosophical and
cosmological reflections which to some degree anticipate the themes of
Blavatsky's later work. The second work, Ghost Land; or, Researches
into the Mysteries of Occultism, is an expansion of the rather truncated
autobiographical sketches previously included in the six issues of the Brittens' Spiritualist magazine The Western Star.
The book is a robust tale of occult adventure which documents Louis'
apprenticeship to the 'Berlin Brotherhood', his subsequent membership of the
English 'Orphic Circle', and his ultimate induction as hierophant in a third,
more powerful order, the 'Ellora Brotherhood'. Taken together, Ghost Land
and Art Magic posit a primordial monotheism which survives at the esoteric
heart of the world's confessional religions, that this true and abiding
'Cabbala' was honoured in ancient Egypt as the source
of manifest magical power, and that its origins lie far to the east in
India. According to this occult scheme, no single divine incarnation is
required: Jesus becomes one of a number of advanced souls whose life, interpreted
allegorically, provides paradigmatic proof for the evolution of
consciousness. The leitmotif of evolution from the simple to the
ever more complex resides at the core of Hardinge
Britten's cosmosophy; there is a dual emphasis on the
horizontal evolution of the anthropos (as
representative of the human collective) from elemental spirit, to human as
presently constituted, and ultimately thence to angel and planetary spirit, and
the perpendicular evolution of the individual from an unenlightened to an
enlightened state. The former process, that of general human development,
operates in aeonic time; the latter, of personal conscious evolution, in single
lifetimes.
Significant in this
scheme is the inference, never fully enunciated, that the point of intersection
between the horizontal axis (collective evolution) and the vertical (personal
evolution) is occupied by the lodge of adepts, in this case the Ellora
Brotherhood. The adept, alone aware of the true dimensions of this
progressivist dynamic, is able to influence the former by concentration on the
latter. The adept's task is to purify, govern, and exalt his will; the
rewards which accrue to his efforts are the meta-empirical powers he is
granted. Such powers are neither mere conjurings
nor the playthings of a preternatural elite, but are to be used sagaciously for
the furtherance of collective human evolution, both spiritual and
physical. It is the Ellora Brotherhood's task to employ their individual
and collective gifts to inculcate a progressivist occult current within human
society.
Godwin has suggested
that '[t]he two books [Art Magic and Ghost Land], taken together, are the first
authoritative statement in English on the distinction between spiritualism and
occultism'. It is certainly true Chevalier Louis asserted that
communication with supra-and submundane entities
(angels, elementals, and so forth) was equally as possible, and desirable, as
the necromantic activities sponsored by Spiritualism, wherein commerce was
restricted by and large to the spirits of the 'unprogressed
human dead'. It is also the case that occultism, as mediated by Hardinge Britten's Chevalier Louis, promotes the conscious
development of an active will in concert with a technology of human-spirit
commerce which emphasises heightened consciousness
rather than a passive receptivism, as was customarily
the case with Spiritualism. This noted, the tension between the
Spiritualist and occultist gnosiologies is never
satisfactorily resolved in Hardinge Britten's
thought. In her Spiritualist writings, Hardinge
Britten is emphatic that physical death provides the crucial launch into the
graded hierarchy of the celestial spheres; indeed, angels and the like are
deprived of their customary orthodox ontology as a unique created order, and become,
rather, the manifestations of post-mortem spiritual evolution. If
the aperture to genuine spiritual enlightenment is opened for all at death,
how, then, are the efforts of mundane esoteric orders such as the Ellora
Brotherhood to be valued or validated? Having comprehensively rejected
terrestrial reincarnationism, Hardinge
Britten leaves unaddressed the consequent paradox: the underlying purpose of
ante-mortem conscious evolution through occult means is comprehensively
undermined if death remains the primary catalytic agent for spiritual progress.
go to:
HPB AND HER
'MASTERS' OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
THE
INFLUENCE OF ROSICRUCIANISM
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