Dogmatism In Theosophy

by William Quan Judge

THE Theosophical Society was founded to destroy dogmatism. This is one of the meanings of its first object – Universal Brotherhood. And Col. H. S. Olcott in his inaugural address in 1875, at Mott Memorial Hall, New York, said that such was the object in view, citing the bad effect that intolerance had had in the past. That address was read by Mme. H. P. Blavatsky before its delivery, or its contents were communicated to her, so that it had her assent, for she was present when it was delivered.

In the Key to Theosophy, in the “Conclusion,” H.P.B. again refers to this subject and expresses the hope that the Society might not, after her death, become dogmatic or crystallize on some phase of thought or philosophy, but that it might remain free and open, with its members wise and unselfish. And in all her writings and remarks, privately or publicly, she constantly reiterated this idea. Of this the writer has direct evidence as to her statements in private.

If our effort is to succeed, we must avoid dogmatism in theosophy as much as in anything else, for the moment we dogmatize and insist on our construction of theosophy, that moment we lose sight of Universal Brotherhood and sow the seeds of future trouble.

There is a great likelihood that members of the Society will insist on a certain orthodoxy in our ranks. They are already doing it here and there, and this is a note of warning to draw their attention to the danger. There is no orthodoxy in our Society.

Even though nine-tenths of the members believe in Reincarnation, Karma, the sevenfold constitution, and all the rest, and even though its prominent ones are engaged in promulgating these doctrines as well as others, the ranks of the Society must always be kept open, and no one should be told that he is not orthodox or not a good Theosophist because he does not believe in these doctrines.

All that anyone is asked to subscribe to is Universal Brotherhood, and its practice in the search for truth. For the efforts of those who are thus promulgating specific ideas are made under the sanction of the second object of the Society, which any one is free to follow or to refuse to follow as he sees fit.

One may deny – undogmatically – reincarnation and other doctrines, or may assert belief in a personal or impersonal God, and still be a good member of the Society, provided Universal Brotherhood is subscribed to and put into practice.

If a member says he must formulate a God, or cannot believe in Reincarnation, none other should condemn or draw comparisons, or point to the writings of H.P.B. or any one else to show that such a member is untheosophical. The greatest minds on earth are puzzled by great ideas such as these, and yet, holding them, can still search for truth with others in a perfect spirit of toleration.

But at the same time it is obvious that to enter the Society and then, under our plea of tolerance, assert that theosophy shall not be studied, that the great body of thought and philosophy offered in our literature shall not be investigated, is untheosophical, unpractical, and absurd, for it were to nullify the very object of our organization; it is a dogmatism that flows from negation and indifference.

We must study the philosophy and the doctrines offered to us before we are in a position to pass judgment and say that they are not true or that they shall be rejected. To judge or reject before examination is the province of little minds or prejudiced dogmatists.

And as the great body of philosophy, science, and ethics offered by H. P. Blavatsky and her teachers has upon it the seal of research, of reasonableness, of antiquity, and of wisdom, it demands our first and best consideration in order that we may with fitness conclude upon its acceptation or rejection.

So, then, a member of the Society, no matter how high or how low his or her position in its ranks, has the right to promulgate all the philosophical and ethical ideas found in our literature to the best ability possessed.

No one else has the right to object, provided such promulgation is accompanied by a clear statement that it is not authorized or made orthodox by any declaration from the body corporate of the T.S. Our Society must be kept free and open, no matter if, because we refuse to formulate beliefs as a Society, we remain small in number, for we can always be strong in influence.

 William Q. Judge
 Path, January, 1892

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Eben Alexander: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey through the Afterlife

Dr. Eben Alexander

THE word ‘Psyche’ is a Hellenistic personification of the soul as female, or sometimes as a butterfly. The allegory of Psyche’s love for Cupid is told in The Golden Ass by Apuleius.

The idea of the psyche is central to the philosophy of Plato.

In his Phaedo, Plato has Socrates give four arguments for the immortality of the soul and life after death following the separation of the soul from the body.^[4] 

“It was H.P. Blavatsky who … was the first to explain [to] the Spiritualist the difference there was between psyche and nous, nefesh and ruach — Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of proofs with her, quotations from Paul and Plato, from Plutarch and James, etc. before the Spiritualists admitted that the Theosophists were right.” –Mahatma K.H.

-H. P. Blavatsky, Psychic and Noëtic Action

Plato’s Socrates also states that after death, the Psyche is better able to achieve wisdom and experience the Platonic forms since it is unhindered by the body.^[5 The Greek Philosopher Aristotle wrote an influential treatise on the psyche, called in Greek Περὶ Ψυχῆς (Peri Psyches), in Latin De Anima and in English On the Soul.

Butterflies

Proof of Heaven

IN this intimate and powerful re-examination of his best-selling book “Proof of Heaven,” Dr. Alexander looks at the past two and a half years of his life spent in trying to reconcile his rich spiritual experience with contemporary physics and cosmology.

He is convinced that his remarkable near-death journey is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today.

This presentation was part of the 128th Summer Convention of the Theosophical Society in America. The theme for the conference was “Science and the Experience of Consciousness,” which brought together such distinguished scientists as physicist Amit Goswami, a consciousness researcher, and psychologist, Dean Radin, physicist, and psychic researcher Russell Targ, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, and more.

Ω

White Lotus Day: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call ‘White Lotus Day,’ theosophists all over the world meet to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the principal founder, and inspiration of the Theosophical Society.

“A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Mme. Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“An unsolved mystery to the Victorian mind and a timeless challenge to our own, she plowed deep into the strata of archaic truth, and called for the restitution of spiritual values and the recognition of man’s divine heritage, Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy, wrote.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

. . . some day, if not at once, the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the honor to which it is justly entitled.

— Editorial, New York Daily Tribune, May 10, 1891

In her will, Blavatsky suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day, and May 8th became known as White Lotus Day among Theosophists ever since.

White Lotus Day

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” her friend and colleague William Q. Judge wrote:

…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

“So our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many ages ago — the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that enslave the human mind.”

— William Q. Judge
H. P. B. A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES.

Reincarnation: How Rebirth Works

Soul Light

REINCARNATION is “one of the most important issues faced by philosophy, religion and science that have very significant implications to the understanding of human life,” says the Reincarnation Research website.

Theosophy agrees. “Reincarnation used to be a subject confined to religion. Since the 20th century, however, the inquiry has moved into the field of science.

This comes about “as a result of ground-breaking researches about people, particularly children, whose memories of previous lives have been validated by independent investigations,” the site reports.

“Many of these cases involved birthmarks or physical characteristics at birth that matched the manner of death of the claimed previous life. Some of them also could speak an unlearned language but which corresponded to the language learned in the claimed previous life.

“The concept of reincarnation, however, goes against the mainstream doctrines of a number of major religions. This has created conflicts and has led to raging debates on the pros and cons of reincarnation.”

Butterfly Girl

H. P. Blavatsky and her Adept Teachers, Founders  of the modern Theosophical Movement, were fully committed to the  prime directive of introducing Western civilization to the the twin Eastern doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma.

The importance of their directive can be seen in H. P. Blavatsky’s Letter 3 to the 4th Annual American Convention in April, 1890, where she declared:

We are outwardly creatures of but a day; within we are eternal. Learn, then, well the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, and teach, practice, promulgate that system of life and thought which alone can save the coming races. 

(H. P. Blavatsky, April 27-28, 1890)

Life Atoms — the Mysteries of Mind, Matter and Energy

Yoga Pose

THE concept of spirituality is, in mainstream science’s opinion, unscientific because they are unable to explain or physically measure it.

In the modern ongoing debate about intelligent design, the Christian evangelist Randal Rauser complains about rigidly biassed scientific dogmas.

“Science shuns any concepts  not based on established and approved models.” Intelligent design, Rauser says, “can only be recognized as a valid ‘scientific’ explanation if bound by the laws of physics.”

On this basis, he writes: “if God is any part of the proposal, it is by definition unscientific —and all claims of legitimacy or illegitimacy of Intelligent Design or God must be disregarded because science has an inherent bias.”

If therefore we don’t know the hidden or as yet undiscovered laws of science, then we don’t know whether an explanation conforms to them or not.

A student of Theosophy would agree. Any honest analysis of a controversy raised by science should acknowledge merely that the concepts do not conform to the “laws of physics as presently understood,” or the laws “as they ultimately are” — but not ignored or dismissed out of hand.

“The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements is a multimedia project about one of the great adventures in the history of science: the long (and continuing) quest to understand what the world is made of – to identify, understand and organize the basic building blocks of matter. In a nutshell, the project is about the human story behind the Periodic Table of the Elements.”

The Mystery of Matter

Mme. Blavatsky insisted that science was intentionally limited allowing only that one must follow the evidence wherever it leads — a  standard that modern science touts, but seldom follows.

She cited as an example the periodic table, developed by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev purported to be a complete and accurate account of all known chemical elements.

Yet the number of possible elements is not known, and to this day more are being proposed and cataloged.

Mme. Blavatsky maintained that the chemist’s materialistic search for the missing elements in Mendeleev’s periodic table would be fruitless, as many were buried out of reach in states of matter unknown as yet on this physical plane. These elements are not all on the same plane of perception. H. P. Blavatsky explains in comparing degrees of substance to the planetary “globes”:

Planes of Substance

“The one eternal LAW unfolds everything in the (to be) manifested Nature on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the countless circular chains of worlds, composed of seven globes, graduated on the four lower planes of the world of formation (the three others belonging to the Archetypal Universe).

“Out of these seven only one, the lowest and the most material of those globes is within our plane or means of perception,

the six others lying outside of it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye. 

“Our Globe, as taught from the first is at the bottom of the arc of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself in its grossest form.

• H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine 1:152

The Third Eye

“Hence it only stands to reason that the globes which overshadow our Earth must be on different and superior planes. In short, as Globes,

they are in CO-ADUNITION but not IN CONSUBSTANTIALITY WITH OUR EARTH and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness.

Two Systems Compared

The Link Between Science
and Spirituality

This short video debuted at IONS’ 40th-anniversary celebration at the EarthRise Center. This was the opening day of the new Environmental Education Center, which showcases plans to develop EarthRise into one of the most environmentally sustainable retreat, education, and research centers in the world. Science as it should be. (Institute of Noetic Sciences)

West Meets East

“The universe is not the meaningless object that Western science says that it is,” IONS senior scientist Dean Radin asserts, “but rather that the universe is permeated with meaning.”

In The Voice of the Silence, H. P. Blavatsky defines the difference between psychic and spiritual senses.

The Energy Field of Hands

The ‘Siddhis’

“There are two kinds of Siddhis,” she explained, “one group embraces the lower, coarse, psychic and mental energies;

the other is one which exacts the highest dstraining of Spiritual powers.

In the next video clip, Dean Radin, Ph.D., refers to the Eastern ‘Siddhis.’ He explains the difference between Western matter-oriented science, and the Eastern spiritually-based science, that emphasizes consciousness as the primary driver.

Occult Chemistry

The Russian chemist and inventor Dimitri Mendeleev, the father of the original periodical table, included predictions for properties of elements he thought were yet to be discovered.

The missing elements, and there are countless numbers of them Blavatsky declared, are those hidden elements of occult chemistry, according to The Secret Doctrine.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev[

“The (ancient and modern) Western American Zuni Indians seem to have entertained similar views,” Mme. Blavatsky also wrote:

But materialism rejects any possibility of such a veiled reality in nature.

The Zuni present-day customs, their traditions and records, she says, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institutions—political, social and religious—”were (and still are) shaped according to the septenary principle.”

The Secret Doctrine 2:605

Zuni Dancers

An electromagnetic astral substratum of matter is still ignored by standard model modern science. Such a field was suggested in the early 20th century by the groundbreaking discoveries of the ‘mad scientist’ Nikola Tesla, a futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

and by Semyon Kirlian’s corona discharge photography pictured below:

Kirlian photography is a collection of photographic techniques used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges.

The Kirlians conducted experiments in which photographic film was placed on top of a conducting plate, and another conductor was attached to a hand, a leaf or other plant material. The conductors were energized by a high-frequency high-voltage power source, producing photographic images typically showing a silhouette of the object surrounded by an aura of light.

Kirlian photo of a Coleus leaf

The Body Matrix

The Design Body

“The whole quarrel between the esoteric and profane sciences,” Blavatsky wrote in her Secret Doctrine (2:149):

lies in the demonstration of the existence of an astral body within the physical.

For humanity to receive the whole truth, The Secret Doctrine points to the overarching need for a recognition of the electromagnetic design body in man and nature — a design field made of living plasma.

Zero Point Age

“Is there such a thing as a life force—an energy field that connects all living things across space and time? Could the existence of this living energy field provide a scientific explanation for supernatural phenomena?

The Field

After interviewing cutting-edge scientists in many disciplines, investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart presents a compelling and stunning argument for this theory in her groundbreaking masterpiece, The Field.”

Science & Spirituality

The ‘field’ is what Rupert Sheldrake calls the “morphic resonance.” It is a living life matrix, called “plastic potency” in Theosophical occult physics.

Studies in Occultism by H. P. Blavatsky

Rupert Sheldrake

Mind-Matter

By ignoring the implications of these and many similar discoveries of an underlying invisible, intelligent structure in nature, mainstream science dooms itself to fruitless speculations, centered on a soul-less and purposeless universe.

Mind and Matter

“If there is anything on earth like progress,” Blavatsky opined in The Secret Doctrine (1:506), “Science will someday have to give up such monstrous ideas as

her physical, self-guiding laws — void of soul and Spirit — and then turn to the occult teachings.

Kirlian Photography

Because of the eye-popping aura patterns revealed by technician Semyon Kirlian, and the vibrant fractal forms of Benoît Mandelbrot, the hidden energy designs of nature become patently obvious to our senses.

Little Flower

Fortunately for humanity, ancient occult science is being restored to its legitimate place today by mind-matter researchers, notably the Institute of Noetic Sciences—and concepts promoted to the public through a host of films.

Among these are Renée Scheltema’s Something Unknown is Doing We Don’t Know What, and The Living Matrix which explores the science of subtle energy medicine.

Litter Flower

Alfred Tennyson was not just a poet laureate, but might also be considered a true scientist. He sensed the hidden side of nature and was unafraid to acknowledge its mystery. In the classic “Flower in the Crannied Wall” Tennyson wrote:

I pluck you out the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower – but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

♥

Chain Links

Summoning to this theme the law of Analogy, which Blavatsky calls “the first key to the world-problem”— she goes on to picture the existence of forms as great chain “whose links are all connected.” These links, she wrote:

have to be studied co-ordinately in their occult relations to each other.

The Secret Doctrine 1:601

Global Links

The Chain

Summoning to this theme the law of Analogy, which Blavatsky calls “the first key to the world-problem”— she goes on to picture the existence of forms as great chain “whose links are all connected.”  And these links, she says:

have to be studied co-ordinately in their occult relations to each other.

§

The Chain of Life

Our Deity

“Every one of the higher, as of the lower worlds, is inter-blended with our own objective world,” The Secret Doctrine postulates, and “it is no metaphysical figure of speech, but a sober fact in Nature, however incomprehensible to our senses.”

“Our deity is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or mountain, ” H. P. Blavatsky declared in the Key to Theosophy — “it is everywhere…

— for IT is the mysterious power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient creative potentiality.

“In every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and divisible molecule.”

Deity Everywhere

Interblended

“Every one of the higher, as of the lower worlds, is interblended with our own objective world,” The Secret Doctrine postulates, therefore …

… it is no metaphysical figure of speech, but a sober fact in Nature, however incomprehensible to our senses.

“There is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — is ‘Be-ness’ rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.”

“The one Reality is also symbolised by the term ‘The Great Breath,’ a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS —”

The Secret Doctrine PROEM 1:14

One Absolute Reality

It doesn’t require any leap to understand why science and religion are compelled to join hands. They co-exist, because of the inseparability of energy (spirit or consciousness) and matter.  

…and, if the two are once divorced, the whole Kosmos would fall back into chaos and non-being.

 Liberation

“I think what we need today is an integration of our scientific understanding of the world,

with the wisdom that is held in the world’s spiritual traditions.

– Peter Russell

Natural Laws of Health

 Spirit & Matter

All systems, small and large, are “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point,” (SD1:181), said Helena Blavatsky over a century ago.  And further (SD 1:640): “It is a fundamental principle of the Occult philosophy

— this same homogeneity of matter and immutability of natural laws, which are so much insisted upon by materialism — but that unity rests upon the inseparability of Spirit from matter.

From the mountain top.

Ancient metaphysical postulates of Theosophy have now begun to visibly flower. For over one-hundred years, untold numbers of trailblazing researchers, thinkers,

… writers and reformers leading to the present day, have sparked a rekindling of the torch of Truth.

Science & Religion 

Preeminent among the torch-bearers are organizations is notably The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). This would very likely be welcome music to the ears of Helena Blavatsky, writer of The Secret Doctrine, boldly subtitled “The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.”

Can they really co-exist? “Loretta Haskell, a board member of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, is also a church musician,” Laurie Goodstein, in the New York Times: April 26, 2009.

I am not one of the humanists who feel that religion is a bad thing.

♣

Loretta Haskell

Thanks to such fearless investigators, and to the multitudes of enthusiastic Theosophical students worldwide, the seeds of the perennial wisdom— sown long ago—have become, as summarized by senior scientist Dean Radin of IONS:

… the paradigm-shattering roots of an emerging, 21st-century worldview.

ξ

Imagine

Of the sincere religious believers, Blavatsky wrote: “Their charity,  and simple, child-like faith in the infallibility of their Bible, their dogmas, and their clergy,

bring into full activity all the virtues that are implanted in our common nature.

 ♥

 

Space is Not Empty: The Invisible Omnipresent, Omnipotent Proteus

Awakening to the Living Kosmos

SPIRITUAL substance exists everywhere, says Occult Science, “and forms the first Upadhi [foundation] on which our World [solar system] is built.

“Outside [our sysem] it is to be found in its pristine purity only between [the solar systems or] the Stars of the Universe.

“The worlds already formed or forming; those in Laya resting meanwhile in its bosom. 

“As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the [Earth], seeing through it, believe in their illusion and ignorance that it is empty space.

There is not one finger’s breath  (angula) of void Space in the whole Boundless (Universe).  

“Matter or Substance is septenary within our World, as it is so beyond it. Moreover, each of its states or principles is graduated into seven degrees of density.”

“In the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is Fohat the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant.”

– H. P. Blavatsky, Fohat: The Cosmic Electricity

Phlogiston

Space is not Empty

(What The Secret Doctrine says, by H. P. Blavatsky):

1. A conscious, colorless spiritual fluid, no empty space.

“Extracts from a private commentary,* hitherto secret: —”

“The Initial Existence in the first twilight of the Maha-Manwantara (after the Maha-Pralaya that follows every age of Brahma) is a conscious spiritual quality. In the manifested worlds (solar systems) it is, in its objective subjectivity, like the film from a Divine Breath to the gaze of the entranced seer. It spreads as it issues from Laya throughout infinity as a colourless spiritual fluid. It is on the seventh plane, and in its seventh state in our planetary world.

“It is Substance to our spiritual sight. It cannot be called so by men in their waking state; therefore they have named it in their ignorance ‘God-Spirit.’

‘Phlogiston’

“We believe in the much laughed at phlogiston (see article “What is force and what is matter?“), and in what some natural philosophers would call nisus the incessant though perfectly imperceptible (to the ordinary senses) motion or efforts one body is making on another — the pulsations of inert matter — its life.”

“Matter (or nature) acting by her own peculiar energy,” writes a Master,

must have always existed — its materials ever changing form, combinations and properties, but its principles or elements being absolutely indestructible.

The connection between phlogiston and plasma can also be seen in another letter from Master K.H.:

What are those long white filaments twisted like so many ropes, of which the penumbra of the Sun is made up? What the central part that is seen like a huge flame ending in fiery spires, and the transparent clouds, or rather vapours formed of delicate threads of silvery light, that hangs over those flames — what — but magneto-electric aura — the phlogiston of the Sun?^[5]

Plasma Ball

The Theosophist, September 1882, P. 319, “What is Force and What is Matter?”  For links click on: Universal Theosophy, Theosophical Periodicals.

“In other words we believe in MATTER alone, in matter as visible nature and matter in its invisibility as the invisible omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with its unceasing motion which is its life, and which nature draws from herself since she is the great whole outside of which nothing can exist.”

“Its motion is due to the force
which is inherent in itself.”

Master K.H. – Letter 10

“The Theosophist who knows anything about life insists that Universal Brotherhood is not a mere theory. It is a fact, a living ever-present fact, from which no nation can hope to escape; no man can escape from it, and every man who violates it violates a law, violates the greatest law of nature, which will react upon him and make him suffer.”

– W. Q. Judge, Universal Brotherhood a Fact in Nature

New map of the night sky reveals 300,000 ‘hidden’ galaxies

“The known universe just got a lot bigger. An international team of more than 200 astronomers from 18 countries has published the first data from what promises to be an exciting new chapter in our exploration and understanding of the cosmos.

LOFAR Image

“Using the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), a large radio telescope network located mainly in the Netherlands, the group was able to discover more than 300,000 previously unknown galaxies.

Even more incredible, this discovery came from observing only 2 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s night sky.

“‘This is a new window on the universe,’ Cyril Tasse, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who was involved in the project, told AFP. ‘When we saw the first images we were like: ‘What is this?!’ It didn’t look anything at all like what we are used to seeing.'”

Mother Nature Network

When Hubble Stared at Nothing for 100 Hours

It turned out that “nothing” was actually stuffed with of galaxies. More than 3,000 of them came spilling out, some roughly 12 billion years old. Spiral, elliptical, irregular – red, white, blue, and yellow – the smudges of light that leaped from the final composite image cracked the universe in ways scientists never could have imagined.

Hubble Deep Field Image Unveils Myriad Galaxies Back to the Beginning of Time

About this image:

Several hundred never before seen galaxies are visible in this “deepest-ever” view of the universe, called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), made with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Besides the classical spiral and elliptical shaped galaxies, there is a bewildering variety of other galaxy shapes and colors that are important clues to understanding the evolution of the universe.

HUBBLESITE.ORG

 

 

“As above so below.”

A deeper study on the subject: 

The Global Consciousness Project

The Early Teachings Of The Masters

♥

Knowing What God and Man Is

Sensing the soul of things.

ALL concepts of God in the opinion of mainstream science are unscientific, because materialism has no way to quantify or measure her existence.

Indeed, as H. P. Blavatsky declared “modern science believes not in the soul of things.” (The Secret Doctrine 1:272)

She also published an article in her magazine titled The Soul of Things (The Theosophist, Vol. 1v, No. 10) noting:

“Psychometry (soul-measuring) is a Greek word to express the faculty—natural, but ordinarily latent in us—by which the inner self cognizes the things of the spiritual (or, if you please, dynamic) world of causes. . . . “

“Step by step, these researches proved the truth of the old Aryan dogma that the Akâśa (Ether) is the cradle and grave of objective nature; and that it holds imperishably the records of everything that ever existed, every phenomenon that ever occurred in the outer world.” 

The poet/artist William Blake intuitively saw “a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower,” that most of us would probably have passed by without noticing. (Auguries of Innocence)

Unlocking the Mystery of Life: God’s Invisible Hand

Sensing the soul of things.

ALL concepts of God in the opinion of mainstream science are unscientific, because materialism has no way to quantify or measure her existence.

Indeed, as H. P. Blavatsky declared “modern science believes not in the soul of things.” (The Secret Doctrine 1:272)

She also published an article in her magazine titled The Soul of Things (The Theosophist, Vol. 1v, No. 10) noting:

“Psychometry (soul-measuring) is a Greek word to express the faculty—natural, but ordinarily latent in us—by which the inner self cognizes the things of the spiritual (or, if you please, dynamic) world of causes. . . . “

“Step by step, these researches proved the truth of the old Aryan dogma that the Akâśa (Ether) is the cradle and grave of objective nature; and that it holds imperishably the records of everything that ever existed, every phenomenon that ever occurred in the outer world.” 

The poet/artist William Blake intuitively saw “a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower,” that most of us would probably have passed by without noticing. (Auguries of Innocence)

How the Soul of Leopard Diabolo became Spirit

Theosophy Watch

Diabolo

SOUL energy exists in both humans and animals, and when they communicate on the same level, magic happens.

This is the incredible story of how a dangerous leopard called Diabolo was tamed by an animal whisperer, and then renamed Spirit.

It’s true that animals always try to communicate with humans but we do not have the skills to listen, or more often, are  not listening.

This journey of a panther who was abused in the past is inspiring and touching, and reinforces an important teaching of Theosophy. (See HPB article Have Animals Souls).

The animal whisperer in this story proves humans can talk to animals and understand their needs and wants, including finding out about their past very accurately. It’s amazing what this panther told the animal whisperer was confirmed as true by everyone who knew the panther’s past.

Wrote H. P. Blavatsky, ” the man of science…

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Toward a Scientific Religion and a Religious Science

THEOSOPHY is that ocean of knowledge which spreads from shore to shore of the evolution of sentient beings.

Unfathomable in its deepest parts, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope, yet, shallow enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the understanding of a child.

It is wisdom about God for those who believe that he is all things and in all, and wisdom about nature for the man who accepts the statement found in the Christian Bible that God cannot be measured or discovered and that darkness is around his pavilion.

Although it contains by derivation the name God and thus may seem at first sight to embrace religion alone, it does not neglect science, for it is the science of sciences, and therefore has been called the wisdom religion.

No science is complete which leaves out any department of nature, whether visible or invisible.

That religion which, depending solely on an assumed revelation, turns away from things and the laws which govern them is nothing but a delusion, a foe to progress, an obstacle in the way of man’s advancement toward happiness. Embracing both the scientific and the religious, Theosophy is a scientific religion and a religious science.

Science and Religion

It is not a belief or dogma formulated or invented by man, but is a knowledge of the laws which govern the evolution of the physical, astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of nature and of man.

The religion of the day is but a series of dogmas man-made and with no scientific foundation for promulgated ethics.

ITC 2016 Conference: Theosophy and Social Responsibility

Theosophy and Social Responsibility

Applying the Head and Heart Teachings
of H. P. Blavatsky

♥

La Casa de Maria
Santa Barbara, California

Thursday, August 11 to
Sunday August 14, 2016

The aim of the 2016 Conference is to explore the active connection between Theosophical teachings and social responsibility, focusing on study and cross-pollination.

Guided by the principles and metaphysical perspectives given in The Secret Doctrine and other writings of H.P.B. and those of her close co-workers, conference participants are going to discuss how fundamental ethical questions reflected in contemporary social conditions might be answered.

– How might students of Theosophy understand and practice social responsibility?

– What thoughts and deeds might help us reduce suffering and improve the quality of life for all that lives?

– Do the teachings of Theosophy, in particular the messages of H. P. Blavatsky, indicate a duty to help others?

During the conference a number of themes relating to Social Responsibility will be introduced in short talks and further discussed in study circles. The results will be shared in plenary sessions.

View the Study Circles program here.

Registrants will receive a code with which they can access a form where they can enroll for the study circles of their interest. For each study circle theme a selection of reading material will be made available for participants to prepare themselves ahead of the conference.

The location and program of the Conference, at La Casa de Maria, will provide an inspiring and regenerative opportunity for both formal and informal discussion in a community of Theosophical learning.

La Casa de Maria

800 EL Bosque Road
Santa Barbara, California 93108

Click here for more photos of La Casa de Maria.

For a list of hotels and other accommodation options in the vicinity of Santa Barbara click here.

For transportation to the La Casa de Maria Conference: click here.

To register, please fill out the registration form.

Seats are limited with a maximum of 140 participants so in order to avoid disappointment you are strongly advised to register as soon as possible.

From H. P. Blavatsky

“It is well known that the first rule of the [Theosophical] society is to carry out the object of forming the nucleus of a universal brotherhood. The practical working of this rule was explained by those who laid it down, to the following effect:-

“HE WHO DOES NOT PRACTICE ALTRUISM; HE WHO IS NOT PREPARED TO SHARE HIS LAST MORSEL WITH A WEAKER OR POORER THAN HIMSELF; HE WHO NEGLECTS TO HELP HIS BROTHER MAN, OF WHATEVER RACE, NATION, OR CREED, WHENEVER AND WHEREVER HE MEETS SUFFERING, AND WHO TURNS A DEAF EAR TO THE CRY OF HUMAN MISERY;

HE WHO HEARS AN INNOCENT PERSON SLANDERED, WHETHER A BROTHER THEOSOPHIST OR NOT, AND DOES NOT UNDERTAKE HIS DEFENSE AS HE WOULD UNDERTAKE HIS OWN – IS NO THEOSOPHIST.”

♣

W. Q. Judge, by Charles Johnston

Methods of
Theosophical Work

by William Q. Judge

I have noticed a disposition on the part of some members to often object to the methods of others or to their plans on the ground that they are unwise, or not suitable, or what not. These objections are not put in a spirit of discord, but more often arise merely from a want of knowledge of the working of the laws which govern our efforts. H.P.B. always said – following the rules laid down by high teachers – that no proposal for theosophical work should be rejected or opposed provided the proposer has the sincere motive of doing good to the movement and to his fellows.

But no one method is to be insisted on. Each man is a potency in himself, and only by working on the lines which suggest themselves to him can he bring to bear the forces that are his. We should deny no man and interfere with none; for our duty is to discover what we ourselves can do without criticizing the actions of another. The laws of karmic action have much to do with this.

We interfere for a time with good results to come when we attempt to judge according to our own standards the methods of work which a fellow member proposes for himself. Ramifying in every direction are the levers that move and bring about results, some of those levers – absolutely necessary for the greatest of results – being very small and obscure. They are all of them human beings, and hence we must carefully watch that by no word of ours the levers are obstructed.

If we attend strictly to our own duty all will act in harmony, for the duty of another is dangerous for us. Therefore if any member proposes to spread the doctrines of theosophy in a way that seems wise to him, wish him success even if his method be one that would not commend itself to you for your own guidance.

(Excerpt from Methods of Theosophical Work)

 For more ULT info click here: ULT Oxygen

Connecting the Worlds of Science and Spirituality

THE concept of spirituality is in mainstream science’s opinion unscientific because they can’t explain or physically measure it.

In the ongoing debate about intelligent design, the Christian evangelist Randal Rauser properly complains about modern scientific dogmas.

Science shuns any concepts not based on established and approved models. Intelligent design, Rauser says, can only be recognized as a valid ‘scientific’ explanation “if bound by the laws of physics.”

On this basis, he says, “if God is any part of the proposal, it is by definition unscientific” —and all claims of legitimacy or illegitimacy of Intelligent Design or God must be disregarded, because science has an inherent bias.

“If therefore we don’t know the hidden or as yet undiscovered laws of science, then we don’t know whether an explanation conforms to them or not.“

ζ

Theosophists agree. Any honest analysis of the controversy by science should acknowledge merely that the concepts do not conform to the “laws of physics as presently understood,” or the laws “as they ultimately are” — not dismissed out of hand.

Mme. Blavatsky insisted that science was intentionally limited, because unwilling to follow the evidence wherever it leads—a  standard science admits, but does not follow.

She cited as an example the periodic table, purported to be a complete and accurate account of all chemical elements.

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2013 in Review

“THOREAU pointed out that there are artists in life, persons who can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful to those with whom they come in contact,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“We claim that there are adepts, masters in life who make it divine, as in all other arts.

“Is it not the greatest art of all, this which affects the very atmosphere in which we live?

“That it is the most important is seen at once, when we remember that every person who draws the breath of life

“…affects the mental and moral atmosphere of the world,
and helps to colour the day for those about him.”

“If all our readers … endeavored to learn the art of making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to be hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but to commence the Herculean task at once, then [2014] would have been fitly ushered in…

“Man’s life is in his own hands, his fate is ordered by himself. Why then should not [2014] be a year of greater spiritual development than any we have lived through?

It depends on ourselves to make it so. This is an actual fact, not a religious sentiment. In a garden of sunflowers every flower turns towards the light. Why not so with us?

“And let no one imagine that it is a mere fancy, the attaching of importance to the birth of the year. The earth passes through its definite phases and man with it — and as a day can be coloured so can a year.

“The astral life of the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter. Those who form their wishes now will have added strength to fulfill them consistently.” (Excerpted from H. P. Blavatsky, “1888”)

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helpers prepared a 2012 annual report for Theosophy Watch.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. Theosophy Watch was viewed about 96,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Live Theosophy Webcast, Aug. 9-12, 2012

THIS year’s International Theosophy Conference (ITC) will take place at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America for the first time. August 9-12, 2012 – Wheaton, IL 60187

The objects of ITC include and support the original Three Objects as expressed in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky.

Theme:

“Karmic Cycles:
Wheels of Spiritual Growth”

SCHEDULE OF PRESENTATIONS AND ACTIVITIES

Free Live Webcast Links
August 9-12, 2012:

Theosophical.org

Theosconf.org

Tim Boyd, president of the Theosophical Society in America, explores the American Section headquarters of the Society, as well as, its purpose and goals. A great introduction for anyone wanting to know more.

Invisible Hand

GOD concepts are in mainstream science’s opinion unscientific because they have no way to explain or measure the idea of deity.

In the debate on intelligent design, the Christian evangelist Randal Rauser properly complains about modern scientific methods.

Science shuns any concepts not based on established models. Intelligent design, Rauser says, can only be recognized as a valid ‘scientific’ explanation “if bound by the laws of physics.”

On this basis, he says, “if God is any part of the proposal, it is by definition unscientific,” —and all claims of legitimacy or illegitimacy of Intelligent Design or God must be disregarded, because science has an inherent bias.

“If therefore we don’t know the hidden or as yet undiscovered laws of science, then we don’t know whether an explanation conforms to them or not.“

ζ

Theosophists agree. Any honest analysis of the controversy by science should acknowledge merely that the concepts do not conform to the “laws of physics as presently understood,” or the laws “as they ultimately are”—not dismissed out of hand.

Mme. Blavatsky insisted that science was intentionally limited, because unwilling to follow the evidence wherever it leads—a  standard science admits, but does not follow.

She cited as an example the periodic table, purported to be a complete and accurate account of all chemical elements.

ε

Through the Veil

MOST of us are so preoccupied with future expectations, we fail to see what’s right in front of us.

A famous attention experiment at Harvard showed that many people missed seeing a 200-pound gorilla walking through a small group of basketball players.

Not so for a clinically blind man, who clearly saw what he should not have seen. Surprised science writer, Andrea Gawrylewski, reporting in The Scientist, described the experiment and wondered:

“How much can you see with a non-functioning visual cortex?”

¿

“With lesions on both sides of his visual cortex,” reports a paper published in Current Biology, “he was able to flawlessly navigate an obstacle course.”

Biologists and neurologists are still searching for the hardware (neurons) responsible for this seeming impossibility.

“It remains to be determined which of the several extra-striate pathways,” the article comments, “account for this patient’s intact navigation skills.”

“It is not fully understood how this is possible,” according to the paper.

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This may be one of modern science’s many stubborn puzzles, but Theosophy easily sees the answer, through the use of a certain hidden sense.

Veils of Science

GOD is by modern science’s definition unscientific because it has as no way to explain or measure the idea of deity.

In the debate on intelligent design, the Christian evangelist Randal Rauser properly complains about modern scientific methods.

Science shuns any concepts not based on established models. Intelligent design, Rauser says, can only be recognized as a valid ‘scientific’ explanation “if bound by the laws of physics.”

On this basis, he says, “if God is any part of the proposal, it is by definition unscientific,” —and all claims of legitimacy or illegitimacy of Intelligent Design or God must be disregarded, because science has an inherent bias.

“If therefore we don’t know the hidden or as yet undiscovered laws of science, then we don’t know whether an explanation conforms to them or not.“

ζ

Theosophists agree. Any honest analysis of the controversy by science should acknowledge merely that the concepts do not conform to the “laws of physics as presently understood,” or the laws “as they ultimately are”—not dismissed out of hand.

Seeing and Believing

MOST of us are so preoccupied with future expectations, we fail to see what’s right in front of us.

A famous attention experiment at Harvard showed that many people missed seeing a 200-pound gorilla walking through a small group of basketball players.

Not so for a clinically blind man, who clearly saw what he should not have seen. Surprised science writer, Andrea Gawrylewski, reporting in The Scientist, described the experiment, and wondered:

“How much can you see with a non-functioning visual cortex?”

¿

Everyday One

ONENESS is most likely both an experience and a state, probably something that you cannot reach if you are afraid of it. It has to be embraced and welcomed in order to be attained.

Embracing compassion and practicing altruism are, no doubt, ways of attaining individual and global oneness. This was discussed in a previous post The Caring Spirit.

The ancients recognized the reality of spiritual being, knowing that an ever-expanding consciousness and an ever-growing understanding of existence is all that truly matters in our eternal evolutionary journey through the fields of infinitude. All the achievements of civilization depend upon it.

A Lived Reality

The underlying spiritual energies pervading any system cannot be known with physical instruments, but only by delving into the depths of our own minds and consciousness, and this requires many lives of self-purification and self-conquest. Awareness of this one Reality is critical to our future survival and of the Earth, our Mother Home.

Sufi teacher Lynn Barron wants to know: What does oneness really look like? Not as a theory, but as a lived reality in everyday life?

Be-ness

Higher states of being have their origin in a corresponding universal mind or consciousness. This is the “one absolute Reality” spoken of in The Secret Doctrine, “which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being.”

Scientists using only materialistic methods are in no position to deny out of hand the possibility of such higher states of consciousness.

This Reality is described by H. P. Blavatsky as an “Infinite and Eternal Cause—the rootless root of ‘all that was, is, or ever shall be.'” It is not a personal god, she says, “it is ‘Be-ness’ rather than Being.”

“Duty is that which is due to Humanity, to our fellow-men, neighbours, family, and especially that which we owe to all those who are poorer and more helpless than we are ourselves, she wrote:-

“This is a debt which, if left unpaid during life, leaves us spiritually insolvent and moral bankrupts in our next incarnation. Theosophy is the quintessence of duty.”

What Would it Look Like?

What if the world embodied our highest potential? What would it look like? As the structures of modern society crumble, is it enough to respond with the same tired solutions? Or are we being called to question a set of unexamined assumptions that form the very basis of our civilization?

This 25-minute retrospective asks us to reflect on the state of the world and ourselves, and to listen more closely to what is being asked of us at this time of unprecedented global transformation.

Compassion Speaks

Now bend thy head and listen well, O Bodhisattva — Compassion speaks and saith: “Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?”           –The Voice of the Silence

Mary Evelyn Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies.

“We are participants in a process that will always be larger than our imagination or our best sciences can fully explain.”

Power Over Nature

Is It Too Late?

Dean Radin, Ph.D., is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. His professional career has focused on experimentally exploring far reaches of human consciousness, primarily phenomena like intuition, gut feelings and psi phenomena.

He is Senior Scientist at The Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Petaluma, California, and on the Adjunct Faculty at Sonoma State University.

IONS

Dean’s research has been featured in numerous magazines and he has appeared on several radio and television programs. He is the author of Entangled Minds and The Conscious Universe.

Dean believes that humankind will be able to change its behavior rapidly enough to avoid its total destruction, because necessity will drive us to do it. And he suggests that something like a global mind could be pulling us or forcing us to make the changes needed.

Love Is Indiscriminate

Adyashanti began teaching in 1996 at the request of his Zen teacher, with whom he had been studying for fourteen years.

The author of Emptiness Dancing,The Impact of Awakening, and My Secret is Silence, Adyashanti offers spontaneous and direct nondual teachings that have been compared to those of the early Zen masters and Advaita Vedanta sages.

Adyashanti describes the inclusiveness of love and how actions motivated by love have the power to unite and to change consciousness.

Human Solidarity

by H. P. Blavatsky

The Key to Theosophy

In the present state of society, especially in so-called civilized countries, we are continually brought face to face with the fact that large numbers of people are suffering from misery, poverty and disease. Their physical condition is wretched, and their mental and spiritual faculties are often almost dormant.

“On the other hand, many persons at the opposite end of the social scale are leading lives of careless indifference, material luxury, and selfish indulgence. Neither of these forms of existence is mere chance.”

Both are the effects of the conditions which surround those who are subject to them, and the neglect of social duty on the one side is most closely connected with the stunted and arrested development on the other.

In sociology, as in all branches of true science, the law of universal causation holds good. But this causation necessarily implies, as its logical outcome, that human solidarity on which Theosophy so strongly insists.

“If the action of one reacts on the lives of all, and this is the true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained.”   – H. P. B.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu, a traditional African philosophy, recognizes how we are inextricably bound in each other’s humanity. Translated as, “I am because you are,” Ubuntu describes a sense of unity between people through which we each discover our own strengths and virtues. Featuring healer Credo Mutwa, GreenHouse Project director Dorah Lebelo, and former Deputy Minister of Health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, this glimpse of South Africa shows compassion as a way of life.

It is this action and interaction, this true brotherhood and sisterhood, in which each shall live for all and all for each, which is one of the fundamental Theosophical principles that every Theosophist should be bound, not only to teach, but to carry out in his or her individual life.

The Deific Essence

“Our DEITY is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or mountain,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote — “it is everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and divisible molecule.”

“IT is the mysterious power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient creative potentiality.”

“Grant us our postulate that God is a universally diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from being soaked through by, and in, the Deity? We call our ‘Father in heaven’ that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness.”

“Universal Unity and Causation; Human Solidarity; the Law of Karma; Re-incarnation. These are the four links of the golden chain which should bind humanity into one family, one universal Brotherhood.”

Necessity is a Mother

Laboratory scientist Dean Radin believes that humankind will be able to change its behavior rapidly enough to avoid its total destruction, because necessity will drive us to do it. And he suggests that something like a global mind could be pulling us or forcing us to make the changes needed.