Speak up for Animals

ANYONE who thinks Theosophy is only about abstract metaphysics, invisible worlds or mystical hierarchies, might want to think again.

The old theosophical teachings, referred to as the “Wisdom Religion,” counsels an active altruism and love for all beings in Nature.

Theosophists are very concerned and serious about protecting Mother Earth with all her creatures great and small.

“Help Nature,” Blavatsky wrote in her translation of The Book of the Golden Precepts, “and work on with her.”

“Real Theosophy is Altruism,” Mme. Blavatsky wrote in her heroic article Our Cycle and the Next, adding:

“and we cannot repeat it too often— it is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to Truth.”

Practically applied, Theosophy is about respecting all the billions of sentient, non-human entities, minerals, animals, and plants that surround and support our existence, many of whom are being used and abused by humankind, sacred resources thoughtlessly sacrificed to the god Mammon.

In her 19th century re-presentation of Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky was not at all abstract when it came to standing up for the planet when she wrote “help Nature and work on with her,” and she was especially critical of what she witnessed as widespread animal abuse and cruelty in her time.

Though not a strict vegan, Mme. Blavatsky was in sync with today’s new age ideas and unreservedly supported the healthful practices and spiritual values of a non-meat diet. (See Article: Have Animals Souls?)

Blavatsky’s radicalism reveals itself in her six-point “mission statement” in The Secret Doctrine, especially point number five in which she declared that “everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms is conscious:

… endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”

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Olivia Bouler, Nature Lover

To appreciate the deeper truth of this occult fundamental requires an innocence of heart, usually a child’s — as in “become like little children,”(Matthew 18:3-4.)

Unlike adults, young children don’t mince words just to win approval. What they see is what they say. To become true planetary partners, therefore, an adult must (Book of the Golden Precepts,) “regain the child-state he has lost.”

Olivia

Olivia Bouler wept when she heard about the oil spill in the Gulf Coast, a place where she spent many vacations with her cousins and grandparents who live in Louisiana and Alabama. Knowing birds were going to suffer during migration and nesting season, she decided to take action. 

Resolve

H. P. Blavatsky spoke out uncompromisingly against sport hunting — foxes, birds and big game — and most loudly against vivisection as widely abusing animals in biological experiments.

“If these humble lines,” she wrote, “could make a few readers seriously turn their thoughts to all the horrors of vivisection, then the writer would be content.”

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Other permanent tortures, daily inflicted on the poor brutes,” she trusted, “will, after calling forth an outburst from society generally, 

“…force all Governments to put an end to those barbarous and shameful practices.“

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Materialism

Original drawing by 11 year old Olivia Bouler

“It’s easy to despair at the problems around us,” writes Change.org, “But then you see stories like Olivia Bouler.” 

“Eleven-year-old Olivia Bouler burst into tears when she saw the graphic photos of oiled birds on the Gulf’s shores.

“More than most kids, she wanted to do something about it.”

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“So a few weeks ago, the Long Island school girl wrote to the National Audubon Society: “I am a decent drawer, and I was wondering if I could sell some bird paintings and give the profits to your organization.”

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“I will do all in my strength
to earn money.”

Since then, that resolve has earned her viral campaign national media attention, and her beautiful drawings have raised more than $100,000 to rescue birds and restore their soiled habitat, according to The Guardian. Her Facebook page currently has more than 29,000 likes, and CBS News flew her and her parents down to the Gulf.”

Olivia’s Story –♥

Animal Betterment

Among many animal groups, and certainly the most politically controversial, is PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.) At this writing PETA has more than 3 million Facebook likes, and more than 556, 000 Twitter followers — the two largest social networks in the world.

If you are adverse to strident politics, you might wish to contact The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), based in Washington, D.C.

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Helena Blavatsky would likely have jumped for joy at the hundreds of non-profit groups working today supporting animal welfare and the environment.

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The Humane Society of the United States is the largest animal advocacy organization in the world— backed by 11 million Americans, or one in every 28 — and with over 2 million Facebook likes. (We’ve come a long way HPB.)

The Gulf Crisis

A recent PETA Action Center Alert email carried this heartfelt plea:

“Tens of thousands of animals who were suffering from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico needed your help!”

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“As oil continues to wreck the water and destroy animals’ breeding, nesting, and feeding grounds in the Gulf, animals continue to pay the price for BP’s criminal negligence. Countless animals have had their homes destroyed and have lost their life mates.”

Ingrid Newkirk

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk focuses her attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry.

Burning Sea Turtles

“Oil-soaked birds slowly drown, turtles endure chemical burns and organ damage when they ingest tar balls, and many marine mammals, such as dolphins, have already been found dead along the coast.

Experts say that whales will not escape the disaster unharmed either, and there is now reason to believe that BP is burning animals alive at sea.”

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“BP’s ‘disaster plan’ deliberately disregarded possible damage to native species and their habitats, listed a long-dead expert as a primary contact,” PETA writes of the outrage — and “.. totally overstated the company’s ability and readiness to deal with such a catastrophe,

“and purposely underestimated the extent of the carnage that could occur — and that continues to occur with no end in sight.”

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Humans & Animals

“As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a million of years ago,” wrote one of Blavatsky’s adept teachers, explaining the reason for it as “prejudice based upon selfishness,” and “a general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought…

“… pride and stubborn resistance to Truth if it but upsets their previous notions of things.”

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We’ve had more than enough time to get our human act together — were it not for a “minor” deviation in Atlantis which  caused the entire continent to sink. We’re still paying off that Atlantean karma, Theosophy says.

Atlantis Connection

The continent of Atlantis sank beneath the Atlantic waves prematurely, due to the depravity of its inhabitants (us.) With no foreseeable gratuitous bailout, our karmic debt load from our past is huge, and is still on the books. This has, and will continue to influence our future, the Theosophical Adepts assert.

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But we still have time to write-down the debt. “Arise, then, O Atlanteans,” W. Q. Judge exhorts in his Article Cycles — “and repair the mischief done so long ago!” — But how?

Theosoophical writer
Paul Johnson answers:–

“According to H. P. Blavatsky, black magic, or the misuse of spiritual powers, led to loss of spiritual vision by the end of the fourth (Atlantean) race, as well as the gradual disappearance of the third eye.

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‘Its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.’”

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Damian Aspinall’s
Extraordinary
Gorilla Encounter

Individuality develops gradually throughout the kingdoms of nature, peaking in the human stage. Self-aware consciousness in higher animals, Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine, and she says: “comes almost to the point.” This short video clip dramatizes that almost point.

One Family

The ancient Greek followers of Aristotle applied the word “Monas” to the whole universe, “in the pantheistic sense,”  Blavatsky wrote.

The Occultists, “while accepting this thought for convenience sake,” she says, “distinguish the progressive stages of  evolution” she wrote, using the terms “Mineral, Vegetable and Animal Monads.”

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The term “Monad,” she says,”merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual evolution is passing through that arc of its circuit.”

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This simply means that all Nature’s forms and kingdoms (even atoms and bacteria) are identical spiritually speaking, differing only in their degree of self-conscious awareness.

In other words, the whole Earth (Gaia) constitutes one great family!

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Orangutan & Hound

When Surya the orangutan meets a stray hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends. See National Geographic: Unlikely Animal Friends.

Spirit Rules

– H. P. Blavatsky

(The Secret Doctrine 1:178)

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“The ‘Monadic [spiritual nature]Essence’ begins to imperceptibly differentiate towards individual consciousness in the Vegetable Kingdom. The Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz.

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“It is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees of differentiation,” Blavatsky wrote, “which properly constitutes the [spiritual essence]— not the atomic [physical] aggregation,

“…which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence.”

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Starlings on Otmoor

The starlings located near Oxford, England are an astonishing sight. This film clip was filmed at a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserve called Otmoor. “It is the most remarkable thing I have ever seen,” said the video cameraman, “and I have seen some pretty amazing things.”

Why Animal Rights?

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos,” says Ingrid Newkirk. “We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved,” she writes. And:-

“For many reasons, you now
might be asking the question:

Why should animals
have rights?

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Learn About PETA Learn How
PETA Helps Animals

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Animals Are Not Ours
to Eat

Animals Are Not Ours
to Wear

Animals Are Not Ours
to Experiment On

Animals Are Not Ours
o Use for Entertainment

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Animals Are Not Ours
to Abuse in Any Way

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