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Saturday 30 December 2017

Blavatsky and Isis Unveiled 2

It is all Isis all the time at Blavatsky News as we celebrate the 140th anniversary of that epoch-making classic that is Isis Unveiled.

https://universaltheosophy.com/mca/exploring-isis-unveiled/

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, Part 1

Unveiling Isis 2, part 2

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, Part 3

Unveiling Isis 2, part 4

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2 – Recap 1-4

Unveiling Isis 2, part 5

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, part 6

Unveiling Isis 2, part 7

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, part 8

Unveiling Isis 2 – recap Chapters 5-8

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, part 9

Unveiling Isis 2, part 10

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, part 11

Unveiling Isis 2, part 12

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis 2 – recap chaps. 9-12

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 2, recap 1-12

Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled – Conclusion


Saturday 23 December 2017

Blavatsky and Isis Unveiled I


Last year was the 125th anniversary of hpb’s passing and sadly, Blavasky News did nothing to mark the event. In order to karmically compensate for this omission, let us celebrate the 140th anniversary of the publication of Isis Unveiled in grand style with a collection of 24 articles analyzing volume one. 
 
To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Quest Books is having a 50 % off sale and Isis Unveiled is the pick for December (sale valid through December 31, 2017)
 
Decoding Isis part 1: Do flying guitars unconsciously cerebrate?
 
Decoding Isis part 2 – I, who am about to be sacrificed on the altar of public opinion, salute you!

Decoding Isis, part 3:”Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or THEOLOGY.”
 
Decoding Isis, part 4: Chap. 1a: Magic, Sacred Mathematics and the Doctrine of Cycles
 
Decoding Isis, Part 5: Cycles and the Yugas
 
Decoding Isis, part six – Chapter 2 – Spiritualistic phenomena, scientific investigation and occult explanations
 
Decoding Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled Part 7 : Chapter 3 -History of the reception of scientific discoveries and investigation of spiritual phenomena
 
Decoding Isis part 8: Chapter 4 – Theories Respecting Psychic Phenomena
    
Decoding Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled 9: Recap Chaps. 0-4
 
Decrypting Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled part 10 – Chapter 5

Decoding Isis part 11 – Chapter 6 – Paracelsian explanations of supernatural and psychic phenomena
 
Exploring Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, part 12 – Chapter 7
 
Decoding Isis, part 13 – chapter 8
 
Understanding Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, part 14, Chapter 9

Decoding Isis part 15 – Chapter 10
 
Decoding Isis part 16 – Recap – Chapters 5-10
 
Investigating Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, part 17 – Chapter 11
 
Decoding Isis part 18, Chapter 12
 
Excavating Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled part 19, Chapter 13
 
Decoding Isis part 20, Chapter 14
 
Revisiting Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, part 21, Chapter 15

Decoding Isis, part 22, recap chaps. 11-15
  
Revisiting Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled v. I, p. 23 – Conclusion
 
Decoding Isis part 24, Finale


 
 

Sunday 10 December 2017

Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Editorial 3/3


From The Durbar in Lahore, part 3

Having described the English and the characteristics they have developed here, let us look at the natives and see how far they have deserved their harsh fate. Let me here express a thought which may seem paradoxical, though it is supported by irrefutable facts. The Hindus lack and are incapable of having that sentiment which we Europeans qualify as patriotism, namely, love for one's country in the abstract sense of the word. 
 
They have no warm attachment for the established institutions of their native country, such as an all-inclusive sentiment, which sometimes electrifies a whole nation and makes it rise as one man to the glorification or the defence of country. They have no responsiveness to its joys and sorrows, its renown or its dishonor.... The reason they lack this sentiment is quite understandably simple, and indeed an obvious and generally well-known fact. Except for the parental house or hut where he first chanced to see the light of day, the Hindu, generally speaking, has no other home. There is more to this than that: the native, as a result of the sacred laws prescribed to him by his religion, often considers his closest neighbors, across the fence of his parents' garden, not as compatriots but as foreigners of an entirely different race, if these neighbors belong to some other caste than his own. This is readily confirmed by the fact that, for instance, in speaking of a Hindu living, let us say, on the opposite side of the field, the first Hindu will refer to him as a bellati (foreigner) - a term of contempt not limited to Europeans only. Thus the native, unfamiliar with the sentiment of patriotism, in case of invasion or civil dissension, apart from the personal courage which drives him to defend his hearth and family to the last drop of his blood, showed and still shows little interest either in the fate of India in an integral sense, or for that of his neighbor, if the latter is of some other caste than his own, or even some other special division or sub-division of the caste to which he himself belongs. 
 
Geographically the country is divided into hundreds of tribes and nationalities; nominally into two races, Aryans and Semites or Hindus and Moguls, in other words the two main religions, the Mohammedan and the Brahmanical. These sects are involved in an age-old irreconcilable feud and only the presence of the British troops restrains the fanaticism of the two races who would otherwise cut each other's throats at any one of their respective religious festivals and of such festivals there are several dozen a year both for the Moguls and for the Hindus, especially the latter. Moreover, even the Mohammedans in India are divided into a large number of mutually antagonistic sects that are unknown to the orthodox believer in Turkey and Europe. As for the Hindus, it is useless even to speak about them: nominally they are (some two hundred million) of the "Brahmanical faith" and worship according to the sacred Laws of Manu and the Vedas. But for that matter even fishes who prey upon each other live in the same water. Look at the night sky with its thousands of stars when there is no moon, if you would have a conception of the castes, sub-castes, the divisions and sub-divisions of the Brahmanical faith. They themselves say that their sacred "Vedas are the universal, shoreless ocean from the bitter-salt waters of which flow forth thousands of fountain-heads of the purest water." 
 
Think of it in this way: the waters of the Veda-ocean are too salty for the average stomach; thus, in order to make them palatable, cunning hydrologists appeared in the guise of Brahmanas and busied themselves in filtering these waters, each one interpreting the ancient scriptures in his own way. After some centuries the result was as follows: The Hindus nominally divide their race into four castes: (1) Brahmanas, or sons of the god Brahma; (2) Kshattriyas or warriors; (3) Vaisyas or merchants, and (4) Sudras or artisans, the lowest class. But each of these castes is divided into sub-castes (ranging from five to thirteen) which, in their turn, split up into innumerable fragments. In other words, each caste is a scale of notes descending from the highest to the lowest, but instead of seven, it contains "seventy times seven" notes. Thus, for example, in the two main divisions into which fall the Brahmanas of the highest aristocracy, the "panchadravidas" and the "pancha-gaudas" (the former being the Southern and the latter the Northern inhabitants of India), we observe that the two sub-castes may neither intermarry nor eat together, if there be even one drop of water in the food; but both these sub-castes are Brahmanas and they may eat any other kind of food in each other's company. A Gujarati Brahmana will accept water from the hands or from the house of a Maratha Brahmana, but will not touch the rice prepared by the latter. A Desastha Brahmana is permitted to speak to a Karhade Brahmana from a distance, but if accidentally he should cross the latter's shadow or touch him, he will become heavily polluted! 
 
The question is: with such a system, can India not only be a nursery for patriotism, as some writers imagine her, but in addition bring forth her own patriots in time? There are about 200 million Hindus professing the same faith, but since Christianity does not prevent a similar and even greater number of Europeans from fighting and hating each other, so likewise is it in India. The country has Maratha Hindus and Panjab Hindus, Bengalis and Dravidians, Gujaratis and Rajputs, Kashmiris and Nepalis, etc.; yet they are all Hindus. Nevertheless to assume from this that the Rajput considers Dekkan and Bengal part of his country, and that should occasion arise he would undertake their defence, is as foolish a hope as that an inhabitant of Moscow should burn with the desire to avenge the English who may have been beaten by the Zulus, or that he would look upon Spain as a part of his country just because it lies in Europe!.... 
 
The English allow the world to believe that they, with a comparatively small army, curbed the rebels in 1857, conquered and reduced to ashes the Mogul dynasty in Delhi, and at long last, chained the Indian rajas to the heels of Great Britain, as prisoner-kings were chained to the chariots of their conquerors in ancient times.... But do they not boast of these great deeds simply because the story of the Mutiny has never been told by anyone except themselves? Since they cannot erase this bloody page from the annals of the conquest of India they elaborate it in their own way. Were the facts to be presented in their true colors, however, it would become evident that they would never have subdued the rebels if the Panjabis, and especially the Sikhs, had not helped them. No one would be foolish enough to doubt either their individual courage or the superiority of their martial genius, their weapons and all else, over those of the Asiatic peoples; but "force breaks a straw"[Russian proverb. - Translator.]  and even if during the Mutiny they threw heart and soul into the military contest, the Panjabis, on the other hand, together with some other tribes who remained faithful to England, were the powerful hand which crushed, one by one, the heads of this manyheaded hydra which was preparing to make a meal of the absent-minded Britons. And without exception they would have been swallowed up in the Mutiny but for "our faithful Panjabis," as the English express it in their rare moments of fair-mindedness towards the natives. And yet, Hindu rose against Hindu, brother against brother, not because of devotion to, or special love for the English, but in the first place, simply to satisfy the Sikhs' personal vengeance against the Hindus of Central India whose armies and many tribes helped their common enemy to conquer Lahore and Panjab in 1845-1849; and also because of their age-old hatred for the Moguls. 
 
Those who assume the English conquered India are mistaken. They merely came and took it, little by little, appropriating province after province, territory after territory.... They met with opposition from the rajas and fought the independent rulers; but the people always remained unconcerned and indifferent spectators of the fighting. Apart from the above-mentioned complete lack of patriotism in the Hindus, this indifference can also be explained by the following, little-known fact: with the exception of the Mogul and some essentially Indian dynasties, the now existing Pleiades of Maharajas and rajas were not, in past times, either kings or even independent rulers of their territories. Being without exception members of the Kshattriya (warrior) caste, they were merely the armed protectors of the people who lived within a certain area in this or that Indian territory, and as they received by common consent a certain tribute in the form of produce and money, they agreed to defend the area in case of aggression by its neighbors, and generally to safeguard its interests while ruling it, and settling its grievances according to the Laws of Manu. These laws were known throughout India and were, as they still are, held sacred and consequently immutable. The whole of Hindostan therefore, in spite of its variety of castes and religious sects, including its hundreds of individual rajs,( The title "raja" is derived from the word raj - a kingdom or state. Some of the latter consist of only a few hundred acres) followed the same laws, the sacred text of which forms an insurmountable obstacle to any kind of reform. 
 
With the passing of the ages the code of the Laws of Manu became a dead letter; the country was covered with slime, like a pool of stagnant water, and was overcome by a senile sleep, awakening only spasmodically here and there, whenever occurred some momentary trouble, occasioned by one of its enemies. But not once, from the first to the present page of her history did India rise as a whole and shake off its centuries-old mustiness; not once did any of her sons voice their pain when the invading enemy crippled some other son....  The English came and offered to substitute their protection for that of the rajas. Among the nations of Hindostan, one thought it over, another pondered upon it, and each in turn, seeing that the newcomers were besting their former protectors and were thus the stronger of the two, seeing that the English offered them a similar or an even more reliable protection, and realizing, that the tribute demanded did not at first seem too high, began to yield without opposition, one after another.... They were not asked to give up either the Laws of Manu or the beliefs of their forefathers, and so without any loss to themselves, as they believed, they obtained conditions that were far more favorable. Why should they be concerned individually about what happened to the other collectively? Who among the Hindus, apart from the Brahmanas, cares whether the country be under the rule of one bellati or another!.... 
 
Part 1 

Friday 8 December 2017

Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Editorial 2/3

From The Durbar in Lahore, part 3
In India, wherever two Englishmen meet, complaints about the "fiendish ingratitude of the black devils" are soon heard and wherever two natives encounter each other, complaints about the "dark intentions of the white oppressors" will pour forth..... Taken together, these complaints produce the same effect on the listener as the duet of "the two blind men" in the operetta bearing that title. In deceiving England concerning India, unconsciously it may be, these oppressors deceive themselves. They treat the natives like slaves or chained dogs; and the slave takes refuge in a slave's only weapons - lies and cunning; and the dog will sink its teeth into its master's neck if it ever breaks loose from the chain. Under this destructive influence all the noble virtues of this people, sentiments of honor, of duty to one's neighbor, of gratitude, all these die out, and are superceded by either negative qualities, complete apathy, or the lowest forms of vice. Thirty years ago you could go to the nearest money-changer (who is likewise a banker), sitting on the street in his hut, and safely leave your entire capital with him, without even taking a receipt; you could then go away, and returning in a year or two, lay your claim before him. And at your first word the banker-money-changer would return the money, even though it were a million.( *This was told me with regret by several Anglo-Indians who had lived in the country all their lives, and by Mr. H--- among others, a wealthy Englishman who for forty years had held some of the most important administrative positions in the country.)  In those blessed days a Hindu's word was sacred, and he was expelled from his caste for the least dishonest action.... Until the upheaval of 1857, receipts were practically unknown in India: one witness was sufficient for any kind of transaction. And now?

Now mercenary witnesses have multiplied not by hundreds but by thousands. A Hindu will out-cheat ten gypsies. In the good old days, in allowing the native to hold a cow's tail in his hand and take his oath on it, the judge could guarantee with his life that the Hindu would never bear false witness on the sacred tail; nowadays, according to the new juridical procedure, they are all, without exception, forced to give their oath on the Bhagavad Gita (a scripture about Krishna), even when the witness does not believe in Krishna but worships Siva or Vishnu. "The cow's tail," don't you see "shocked too greatly the inborn aesthetic sentiments of the British" - is the English explanation of this juridical change. But was it not from an overdone intent to reward India in an artistic and aesthetic manner that she was shamed in an economic and moral sense? Judge for yourselves. Having, for instance, embellished the country with gorgeous public buildings, mostly prison-castles and barracks, they permitted a memorial such as the two-thousand-year-old Sarnath, erected before the time of Alexander of Macedonia, to decay and fall apart as it pleased. Having directed their constructive energies towards the building of universities, town halls, clubs, Masonic lodges (in European style), and having driven the natives out from these, except the first-named, they compensated the latter by giving them complete control over all the public-houses which they, the English, had built with the purpose of selling the adulterated alcohol of their own country, including that intoxicant known as Scotch whisky.

They forced all India to dress in the products of Manchester and thus brought ruin to all the cotton and other weaving industries of the country; they forced the Hindus to worship gods manufactured in Birmingham, and to cut with Sheffield steel; they even taught them gluttony - to eat, after they had filled themselves with whisky, damaged preserves that rot here in one week; consequently, they die by the hundreds from cholera. What room is there here for aesthetics? A Hindu rightly told me that the European civilization, for which the natives are not ready and which they cannot appreciate, has the same influence on their country as a luxurious but poisonous manchineel-tree transplanted into a blossoming garden: it kills all the other plants with its deadly exhalations. "Can this possibly be revenge?" this young student asked with perplexity, "revenge for our last mutiny? Neither India in general nor we, the people of this generation, are guilty of this crime!.... Why, then, should this be?...." May the Simla dignitaries forgive me for my involuntary suspicion - but there is a grain of truth in the remark of this poor student. Louis Jacolliot noticed this long ago! "The English were frightened as never before. They will never forgive India for this," he says in one of his books. This revenge has, of course, long ago become unconscious, but the British are vindictive by habit. To imagine these people, unquestionably intelligent in their politics, as consciously doing all they can to ruin and perhaps even lose India, "the most precious pearl in the crown of the Empress," would indeed be too stupid! And yet, this is exactly what they are doing, and I have often heard this stated in friendly conversation with Englishmen who had lived many years in India, who knew the country and its inhabitants as well as their own five fingers, and who had declined to work in a government office on account of their complete disgust with the new system....

In spite of all efforts and amelioration, training-farms and skilled technicians, the fate of two-thirds of the farming population does not improve, but deteriorates with every day. The majority of these unfortunates have to be content with one meal a day, and what a meal! The most wretched beggar in Russia would turn away from such food; the watchdog of a miserly Jew is fed better; a handful of half-rotten groats (rice is too expensive) or a small bunch of withered vegetables in water - such is the daily food of the coolie! Poor, miserable Indian coolie! Is there a creature in the world more patient and more wretched than he? He rises before dawn and lies down to rest on damp mother-earth late at night, working sixteen hours a day in exchange for four annas, (10 cents) and sometimes for kicks..... As to a God, he has none, because there is no time for one, and besides, he cannot borrow God from anywhere or anyone. The Brahmanas repulse the poor wretch like an unclean pariah and strictly forbid him knowledge of the Vedas, or prayers from the Vedas. Even the padres have ceased enticing him to embrace Christianity, with a silver rupee clenched in the same fist which offers him the cross. The coolie accepts the coin, and no sooner has the padre sprinkled him with holy water than he goes and buys cowdung (Manure is expensive here and is sold by weight) with the acquired sum, besmears himself from head to foot with the sacred product, and thereupon assumes the role of an idol for other coolies, who pray to him....

The attitude of the English as regards the natives of the better and more highly educated class, coldly-contemptuous and crushing as it is, is in this instance a much more serious thing, all the more so since the cultured natives are not used to this, and it did not exist at the time of the East India Company. Listen to what The Statesman, the most frank of the London journals, says about the feelings of the Hindus towards their rulers: "It is not India's financial status that causes us the greatest uneasiness, [says this paper] but the state to which the bulk of the population has been brought through our administration and through our unquestionably despicable conduct with regard to the native rulers. We are detested alike by the classes which were powerful and influential before our time, and by the students of our own educational institutions in India, the schools and colleges; we are detested because we egotistically deprive them completely of all honorable or profitable position in the management of their own country; we are detested by the masses for all the indescribable suffering and for that fearful poverty into which our rule has plunged them; finally we are detested by the native princes for the tyranny and oppression the Simla Foreign Office has practiced upon them." These words were reprinted in all the native newspapers and journals without comment.

Was it like this at the time of the East India Company which was banished from the country because of the last Mutiny? No, of course not! With all its egotism, extortions, avidity and unfairness, the defunct Company knew how to get on with the natives. It did not constantly force them to feel the superiority of its origin. The natives themselves recognized the excellence of the armed equipment and the moral stamina of the English, and at that time respected them, while now they only fear and detest them. In those days, when a journey to India meant a round-the-world trip, adventurers who sought a fortune across the seas became the real Anglo-Indians. Many of them, having lived there without a break for thirty or forty years, or even from birth to death - not in proud isolation as is now the case, but after many years spent in the daily company with the natives - became at last so used to their manner of living and even their thinking, that they understood the needs of India and sympathized with these no less than the Hindus themselves. In those happy days they not only did not despise the natives and flaunt their white skins, but even frequently legally married the native women. They too quarreled with the rajas, and with the lawful land-owners whose property they appropriated in the name of England, but they got on well with the people and maintained friendly relations with them. Then, suddenly, came an unforseen disaster. The thunderbolt of 1857 struck the country and changed everything. With the death-throes of Delhi came the end of the famous Company also. The bold adventurers, who were "gentlemen" nevertheless, and who until that time had controlled the destinies of the Indian people, vanished in the whirlwind that uprooted both the Mogul empire and the final independence of hundreds of rajas. India was handed over to the Crown, and in place of the bold adventurers new people were sent out and reforms were inaugurated....

I do not know whether England gained by the change; it would be out of place to go into this question now, but if the unanimous testimony of the natives as well as the admission of many Englishmen are to be credited, India lost a great deal. What did it matter to the Hindus that the unscrupulous activities of such adventurers as Warren Hastings and company became henceforth impossible in India? For people with such original opinions built up through the ages, as the Hindus and, generally speaking all Asiatics have, regarding any voluntary mutual agreement, an administrator in the Oriental style such as Hastings, who was ready to look with favor on any kind of offering, ranging from an entire province down to "Borzoi pups," in the style of Gogol, [Nikolay Vassilyevich Gogol (1809-52), Russian novelist, playwright and humorist. - Translator.] was far more acceptable than an administrator of the Beaconsfieldian drawing-room lap-dog variety. It was possible to come to an agreement and to enter into personal relationships with the former, and, while losing on one hand, to win on the other; but the latter, appearing like some kind of unapproachable luminary, bureaucrat and formalist, looks on the native as vermin which must not be touched even with gloved hands, but only ruled over, with its tail firmly crushed under one's heel.

As a result of the Mutiny and with the new order brought into the country, the Hindu without a doubt became more civilized. Together with the above mentioned charming European aesthetics, he learnt much that he had not known in the days of the Company, as for instance that Themis may be just as blind in civilized as in uncivilized countries, yet, to make up for this, she must also remain incorruptible; but he gained this knowledge theoretically only, without, of course, having any faith in the principle itself, and in practice often trusting to the reverse. From his masters he learned the refined ideas on civic virtue in general, and the honor of a gentleman in particular, while he himself, under the constant pounding of the heavy waves of English contempt, lost even the last conception of his own honor, as well as all feeling of self-respect. It follows, then, that the British government, with the best of intentions, is ruining India. As far as I can see, this is a situation that cannot be remedied though England should correct all the mistakes of the last twenty years, especially those of the administration of Disraeli. But even so, she is incapable of either remedying the damaged morality of the country or of changing the nature of the English, who have cut a deep rut for themselves as a result of their contempt for everything native, and who have on their own side dug such strong albeit artificial dikes that they will never in a thousand years reach an understanding with the Indians.

The waters of the Thames will sooner merge with the waters of the Ganges than will the Englishman in India look upon the Hindu as his equal, though the latter were a hundred times a Maharaja and his family descended from the days of Adam. The English feel a positively insurmountable aversion for the Hindus. As I pointed out above, this is a psycho-physiological and not a political question. Apart from a few old Anglo-Indians who lived through the Mutiny, the officials who are sent from England, even if they enter the country without any particularly strong prejudice, are immediately infected by the atmosphere around them and forcefully drawn into it, and cannot oppose the public opinion which is expressed by the entire English colony. "To live among wolves one must howl with them" - this proverb applies to the English more than to any other European community. In its midst it is dangerous even to sneeze in an un- English way; its members will immediately exchange glances with the usual smile which is a mixture of almonds and vinegar, and will become more August, more gracious in their manner towards the sneezing individual, and nod their heads as if to say: "Poor foreigner! He is not yet familiar with the elegant conventions of our society!" It is only the enormous salary, unthinkable in another colony, and the profits derived from Indian service that attract the functionary. He resides here only with the hope of returning home; he counts the time by three-year periods, from one home-leave to another; he makes for himself a little artificial English world in this country, and all that exists beyond the boundaries of this world evokes in him an inexpressible squeamishness and disgust....
Part 3 

Friday 1 December 2017

Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Editorial 1/3


As previously remarked, the remarkable phenomena that is the Blavatsky revival has been accompanied by a negative backlash, and recently some articles on the Nazism/racism/anti-semitism question have appeared, which will be covered in a future post. To counter-balance this, what better way than to let Blavatsky speak for herself. She has consistently denounced racial oppression in her writings, for example
The Jews in Russia New York World, Sept. 25th, 1877 http://blavatsky.net/index.php/jews-in-Russia The text below is from Chapter 3 of The Durbar in Lahore, planned for publication in the second volume of Blavatsky's Russian Travel Writings by Boris de Zirkoff, but unfortunately never published. It was originally serialized in a Russian publication in 1881, and later translated and serialized in The Theosophist in 1960-61. It is quite a nice piece of travel writing and this section shows a sensitive, articulate, thoughtful, balanced and humane understanding of the colonialist socio-political realities of the time.

Upon reaching this chapter, I find myself forced to break the continuity of my story for the sake of a brief explanation. To many a Russian India seems like the end of the earth, and, if I do not outline more clearly the mutual relations between conqueror and vanquished, and give a sketch of the country itself, much of the story of what I saw and heard at the wonderful Durbar in Lahore will remain both obscure and inexplicable.... Without claiming the slightest infallibility of opinion, especially where politics are concerned, I offer the following pages as mere personal observations, superficial, but on the whole truthful; that I can guarantee. Having listened to numerous discussions on India, as I had to in Simla, on the one hand, and to as many restrained complaints from the natives, on the other, and forming furthermore my conclusions without any prejudice whatsoever, on the events as they took place before my very eyes, I believe that my two years' continuous residence in the country places me in a position to judge of it fairly accurately. Being but imperfectly initiated into the secret mysteries of the Calcutta cabinet, and still less interested in them, I nevertheless believe that something pure white cannot appear jet black to me, or vice versa; all the more so since it becomes obvious to any foreigner that the character of the relationship between rulers and subjects is very far from being normal. In the two preceding chapters, as in my earlier letters about India, and especially in my articles: "From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan" which were published in the Moscow Chronicle, I have often referred to this amazing and entirely unjustified relationship; one of utter contempt and arrogance on the part of the English, and on the part of the natives sometimes disgusting servility and cowardice.
 
Every time I express my honest opinion about the injustice and cruelty of the English towards the natives, when conversation turns to their mutual relationship, the former assure me that I am mistaken, since I know nothing about their subtle politics, and the latter, in answer to my pacificatory expressions and words of consolation, attempt to convince me that there is no single Englishman in India who wishes them well. Soon I came to the following conclusion: both sides exaggerate, the one its great virtues and merit, and the other its seemingly undeserved fate. The former, inspired, probably, by the wise proverb that "dogs go mad from over-eating," [Russian proverb. - Translator.] seem to undergo a complete change, as it were, on their arrival in India from England. The latter, we will grant, have not individually deserved such a cruel fate, but India, as a whole, is carrying the heavy burden of her age-old sins: by her own past she has herself fashioned the misfortunes of the present, and her present position was inevitable. More remarkable still is the fact that absolutely nothing is known in England of the activities of the English in India or the true state of the natives under the English yoke.
 
How true this is may be inferred from the following: an educated Hindu goes to Europe, after having partially renounced his superstitious prejudices concerning both his country and his caste; he travels first class, no longer dressed as a sans-culotte but almost in European style; he wipes his nose with a handkerchief and not with the fork of Adam; his manners, like those of all natives, are quiet, even refined; even his education is by no means inferior and is sometimes considerably superior to that of most of his English traveling companions. In spite of this, his journey is divided into two phases: the first extends as far as Aden, and the second from Aden to London. From India to Aden, that is to the midpoint of his trip, the English will shrink from him; they will look upon him as a despicable creature belonging to a "lower race"; in other words they will ignore his presence, and he will rarely have the courage to assert his right of sitting with them at the common table. But beyond Aden, and before the steamer has lost sight of the shore, everything and everybody changes as if by the wielding of a magic wand!.... The Hindu is drawn into conversation. He is not avoided any longer; and if it should happen that some Indian official is on the ship on home-leave, even he will probably discuss politics with him, while the official's wife will condescend to draw his attention to the weather. The same happens on the return journey. From England to Aden will be a paradise. But the steamer will barely have rounded the burning mounds of Arabia and reached Bab el Mandeb, when the stage-setting is again altered: the free British subject becomes the abject English slave of whom the people in England have no conception!.... This is no fiction but a fact confirmed every week. 
 
Who, then, is to blame for this? Is it England with its laws and institutions which guarantee equality for all, or is it the English, namely, the English in India - quite a different thing?.... Of course we must blame the Anglo-Indians. They alone, during the last twenty years, have built up these prejudices, which feed their arrogance and conceit. In India, where everybody makes obeisance to them in serf-like fashion, these two vices are encouraged, in proportion to their climate infected livers; in England none of them would dare to admit the sheer Asiatic despotism and contempt with which they treat the Hindus, and not only in England but even here everyone of them, at any such hint, denies it and tries to refute any direct accusation. Peter blames Paul, but will never confess to sin himself. "Are you not ashamed to treat the poor Hindus like that.... as though they were dumb animals?" I asked a most amiable and kindly Briton in whose brother's house I was staying at that time. The amiable Briton opened wide his blue eyes, and his pink face assumed an expression of astonishment. "Treat them how? Do I treat them badly?" "You do not exactly decorate them with medals, do you? When opportunity affords, you treat them as a Castilian driver treats an obstinate mule!...." "You must be mistaken. I cannot speak for others. There are, naturally, people in our colony (that is, the English) who are, perhaps, a bit too rough on the natives. But personally I am not one of them; you are really not being fair, you know!...." "Well, what about yesterday, when that old Rao Bahadur[ A high native title of nobility.] came to your study, and having entered in his stockings remained humbly standing at the door?.... You not only did not ask him to be seated, but did not let him come within ten steps of you."  "My dear friend! You reason like a woman!" exclaimed my friend. "The old man's visit was an official one, and I have no right to depart for his sake from the wise policy of our administrators, which is to treat the natives with cold reserve. Otherwise they would have no respect for us. This is a policy of estrangement." "It probably coincides with a policy of approach which is by no means ambiguous. Did you not, in my presence, push your gardener, who was peacefully occupied with his work in the flower-bed, merely because he happened to stand in your way when we walked along the path?" "That was unintentional," said my friend a little abashed: "It is sometimes difficult to distinguish their dark skins from the earth." "Is that so? Well, tell me then, this dark-complexioned gardener of yours, is he or is he not a British subject?" "W.... Well, of course he is!" admitted my companion somewhat unwillingly, sensing possible treachery in my unexpected question. "And he shares equal rights with an English gardener, for instance?" "Yes.... but what are you driving at? I don't understand." "Oh, nothing in particular, only the curiosity of a foreigner and a woman. I like to draw deductions from comparisons.... But what is your opinion? If you were to give an English gardener an undeserved, or, even a deserved slap in the face, would you not risk a return blow?.... Your gardener would have the law on his side, and you, as, instigator, would be fined. Well, supposing the Hindu in his turn, as a British subject, reciprocated similarly?" My friend fairly jumped. "I.... I would have beaten him to death! A Hindu may be a British subject, but he is not English!...."
This exclamation contains a whole tome of admission. It places a seal, as it were, on the sentence pronounced on an entire nation and its present, if not its future destiny. 
 
Everyone knows that England is a great and powerful nation; everyone knows also that England as a nation cannot help wishing India, as one of its best colonies, at least material success, if not ethical growth, if only to uphold the proverb that "No one sets fire to his own harvest." And in this material respect England does indeed all she can do to help India, without sparing either labor or money. True, this labor is rewarded from India's treasury. But the fact that England acts selfishly in this regard cannot alter the fact that she is preparing a magnificent future for India, if only the child can survive this period of stern education; a future in fact such as would have been unthinkable for this stagnant country during either the Mogul dynasties or its periods of autonomy, as prejudice and age-old customs have always hampered its progress. Much sorrow and suffering has the great Bharata experienced in her time, but this suffering has but the better prepared her for the complete renaissance that awaits her. Only twenty years ago the Hindu would have chosen a thousand deaths rather than accept a glass of water offered him by a European or in the latter's house, and not only a European, but a Moslem, a Parsee, or a Hindu belonging to a different caste. To take liquid medicine prepared in a public drug-store - medicine compounded with water, was considered a mortal sin; to sit beside a compatriot of another caste was equal to being expelled from one's own, and that meant everlasting dishonor. Ice and soda-water were looked upon with disgust, but nowadays medicine as well as ice and soda-water, and especially a network of railways, have accomplished their purpose. Under the influence of civilization, even though it has been forced upon the nation, those age-old prejudices that ruined India and made her such an easy prey to the first adventurers who desired to possess her, are beginning gradually to melt, like a frozen puddle beneath a sunbeam. 
 
Without a doubt the English have conferred and continue to confer inestimable benefits on India; but, I repeat, for her future, but by no means for her present. Their boast is that even if they had given her nothing but their protection against Moslem invasion, and their help for the complete suppression of civil dissensions, they would still have done more for India than any other power, including the Hindus themselves, from the time of the first Mohammedan invasion. Possibly England has done even more than that. But then the present Anglo-Indian government is acting like a stepmother, who ill-treats her step-sons and starves them secretly behind her husband's back, even though it strictly carries out in all other respects the programme submitted by the Home Government. Unfortunately for India, England is very distant, and the Anglo-Indian government is always at India's throat with a whip in its hand. Naturally enough the natives cannot be content with this and are perpetually complaining..... 
 
However, although most of their complaints are justified, they are themselves at fault in many things. Instead of gaining profit for the future from the lessons of the past, they act like ostriches, hiding their heads in the sand and giving way to bitterness in the present. If the English were to treat the natives humanely, their power would appear less despotic; the Indians would not tremble before them as they do, and that power would become more firmly rooted than is evident at present on Indian soil, through the love and gratitude of the people. Quiet and gentle, the majority of the natives are ready to lick any caressing hand, and to show gratitude for every bone thrown to them. If the English were less ferociously contemptuous towards the Hindus, and more kindly to the people, their prestige would possibly diminish, but their safety in the conquered country would become more firmly established in the future. But it is precisely this they do not wish or cannot understand. They seem completely to forget what every child knows, that their prestige is a sparkling soap-bubble, entirely dependent on external events beyond their control. Their power in India is well established, even with the present caste-system, merely because the natives have a superstitious idea about their invincibility, and find in it no trace of an Achilles' heel; and also because, according to the teachings of Krishna, they dare not go against "the inevitable". Being fatalists, they believe that they are living in the Kali-Yuga, "the black age," and cannot expect anything favorable as long as this age lasts on earth. In these two superstitions, as if in two impregnable fortresses, lie concealed the power and safety of the English. But let the British army be badly beaten somewhere, and the soap bubble will burst, and the superstition will vanish from the minds of the Hindus, like the visions in a nightmare at the moment of waking. 
Part 2 

Thursday 16 November 2017

Blavatsky and Pop Culture 2

a young Manga Blavatsky
Blavatsky is a character in Japanese Video Game –Much ‘ahem’ research was needed which consisted in many hours of video game playing in order to give a proper report – a tough job, but someone has to do it:
Fate/Grand Order Official Guide Book with Drama CD Released!
Apr. 15, 2017 12:00
Two novels ("Eirei Densho ~Jing Ke~" by Higashide Yuichiro and "Eirei Densho ~Elena Blavatsky~ by Sakurai Hikaru),
https://otakumode.com/news/58ef421006eef61e16311b70/Fate-Grand-Order-Official-Guide-Book-with-Drama-CD-Released!
http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Caster_(Fate/Grand_Order_-_Blavatsky)
 
Fashion Section: For the fall collection, we bring you the best in goth style, the Blavatsky Boots:
Fate Grand Order Helena Blavatsky Black Shoes Cosplay Boots
Underneath, you’ll probably encounter insightful insight regarding this ensemble or add-on coupled with costs and other selections for the Anime Costumes COSS1003 Fate Grand Order Helena Blavatsky Black Shoes Cosplay Boots.
http://anime-costume-store.com/2017/07/15/coss1003-fate-grand-order-helena/ 

Blavatsky Boots
Blavatsky’s lovely illustrated Cosmogenesis gets a fancier printing:
Slow Your Roll, Iron Fist—We’re Talking Esoteric Comics With Ron Regé Jr.
Apr 5, 2017
MERCURY: The central piece in What Parsifal Saw is "Cosmogenesis," an illustrated creation myth based on the writings of 19th century Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Is Blavatsky’s "Cosmogenesis" a book I could actually find and read?
RON REGÉ JR. [sounding like the Kool-Aid Man]: Oh yeah! "Cosmogenesis" is the first part of Madame Blavatsky’s life’s work, her three-part bible of theosophy called The Secret Doctrine.
http://www.portlandmercury.com/comics/2017/04/05/18929414/slow-your-roll-iron-fist-were-talking-esoteric-comics-with-ron-rege-jr
 
Pam Grossman is the author of What Is a Witch?, an illuminated manuscript in collaboration with Tin Can Forest. – April 1st, 2017
WEBEXCLUSIVE INCONVERSATION PAM GROSSMAN with Jessica Caroline
Madame Blavatsky also wrote and spoke extensively about this concept by the way, and she doesn’t get nearly enough credit for that as far as I’m concerned. Theosophy has been far more influential on religious and cultural thinking than many people realize
http://brooklynrail.org/2017/04/art/PAM-GROSSMAN-with-Jessica-Caroline
There was a One-woman play about Blavatsky in Italy:
"Rassegna "Femminilità", incontro "Helena Blavatsky" al municipio di Este l'8 aprile 2017 Eventi a Padova
L'EVENTO

Sabato 8 aprile si tiene il terzo dei tre incontri dedicati ad altrettante donne speciali: la pittrice Artemisia Gentileschi, la famosa attrice Eleonora Duse e la fondatrice della Società Teosofica Helena Blavatsky ​nella Sala Consiliare del municipio.
"Potrebbe interessarti: http://www.padovaoggi.it/eventi/femminilita-este-8-aprile-2017.html
Seguici su Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PadovaOggi/199447200092925

Film Adaptation of The Secret Will Star Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes is thinking good thoughts as she uses her gift to impart the wisdom of The Secret
The Secret spawned the follow-ups The Power in 2009, The Magic in 2010, and Hero in 2013. Byrne aims to bring joy to the world by helping people control the universe with their minds, using the teachings of Madame Blavatsky and Norman Vincent Peale and a little bit of quantum physics. http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-secret/266917/film-adaptation-of-the-secret-will-star-katie-holmes

Article on The Secret’s Law of Attraction:
Beyond The Law of Attraction: Conscious Creation
October 27, 2017
LoA was taken up and popularized by one of the cofounders of the Theosophical Society, Irish lawyer and esotericist William Quan Judge, who attempted no new revelation of his own, but to illustrate in his own words Madame’s theosophical teachings and their ideal use. He wrote, in summation of his deepest belief:
https://www.ornaross.com/beyond-law-attraction-conscious-creation/
 

Friday 3 November 2017

Blavatsky and Masonry

Jean-Marie Ragon
Here's what Blavatsky says about Masonry: "But, talk of such a deity — a "NON-EGO" — to the modern priest and theologian or even to the average Mason of General Pike’s school of masonic thought, and see whether the former does not forthwith proclaim you an infidel, and the latter a heretic from "the Grand Orient" of France. It is the "Principe Créateur " of the French Masons, and the same that led, some ten or twelve years ago, to a final split and feud between the only decent ap-proximation on this globe to a "Universal Brotherhood" of Man — to wit, Masonry." (Lucifer, Vol. III, No. 18, February, 1889, pp. 505-512 - CW 11, p.24)

Blavatsky and the Battle of Mentana

Garibaldi, along with Giuseppe Mazzini and other Italian reformers, were leaders in what was known as the Risorgimento, or the rebirth and unification of Italy. The Risorgimento demanded an end to foreign occupation, a government that empowered ordinary people, and the overthrow of papal rule, or the "pope as king."
“The British Birth of the Occult Revival, 1869-1875” by Patrick D. Bowen
 October 23, 2017 - K.P.Johnson
A groundbreaking article appeared in Theosophical History Vol. XIX Issue 1, January 2017, pp. 5-37. Co-editor of Letters to the Sage Patrick D. Bowen has analyzed the careers of Kenneth Mackenzie and associates and discovered evidence suggesting intertwined roots of many post-1875 occult groups in the work of a group of British Freemasons.
http://adepts.light.org/2017/10/23/the-british-birth-of-the-occult-revival-1869-1875-by-patrick-d-bowen/


Jason Colavito writes coherent albeit negative critique of Blavatsky’s Masonic Chapter from Isis and the subsequent influence thereof (and gets a lively response)
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/helena-blavatsky-freemasons-and-the-occult-history-of-the-knights-templar#comments

Fundamentalist Christian sources, typical “new world order” conspiracy theory, not quite as shrill as most, research not bad:
Freemasonry & The Catholic Church: A Brief Introduction
H. Reed Armstrong May 12, 2017
This is the “occult doctrine” promoted through the ages by the followers of Satan going back to the Garden, as newly propounded  by Helena P. Blavatsky  – The Secret Doctrine (Pasadena, California: Theosophical University Press, 1963), Volume I, page 414.  Volume II, pages 234, 235, 243, 245.
https://onepeterfive.com/freemasonry-catholic-church-brief-introduction/

Article explores Blavatsky’s relationship with Charles Sotheran;
Helena Blavatsky on Charles Sotheran and Masonic Patent: “I am not a thirty-third degree Mason”
Dominique Johnson 24 May 2017

https://theacademiciantheosophical.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/helena-blavatsky-on-charles-sotheran-and-masonic-patent-i-am-not-a-thirty-third-degree-mason/

Madame Blavatsky a Freemason
FROM MACKEY'S REVISED ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FREEMASONRY VOL.1:
Brother George Fleming Moore printed articles entitled Notes from India and Co-Masonry in the October, 1910, and February, 1911, issues of the New Age, of which he then was the editor.
When we say the good friends of Madame Blavatsky assert that she never claimed to Mason we refer to members of the Theosophical Society. Shortly after the issuance of our article, Notes from India, we received a letter from Brother J. H. Fussell of Point Loma California, taking us to task for intimating that Madame Blavatsky ever claimed to be a Mason and urging us in the strongest terms to correct what he deemed an error and one that is unfair to the memory of H. P. Blavatsky.
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/themagazine/vol8/articles/madame.shtml

French article touches upon Blavatsky, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Yarker Connections:
On jette un œil sur : Helena Blavatsky

11 août 2016- jeremy lehut
https://endirectduchaos.com/2016/08/11/on-jette-un-oeil-sur-helena-blavatsky/

 English translation- Jean-Marie Ragon on Universal Masonry and Brother/Sisterhood
https://theosophyproject.blogspot.ca/2017/10/jean-marie-ragon-on-universal-masonry.html

Sunday 15 October 2017

Blavatsky and Music


Holst's über-famous The Planets inspired by Blavatskian astrology:
https://classicalexburns.com/2019/01/19/gustav-holst-the-planets-a-series-of-mood-pictures/

Interviewwith pop musician Ian Astbury, mentions Blavatsky:

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4149853-if-anyones-an-institution-in-the-cult-its-billy---dis-meets-the-cults-ian-astbury
 
Some kind of improvisational alternative pop collective concert tribute to Blavatsky:
Madame Blavatsky Channel Opera – Becky Stark, No-Ra Keyes, Phan-C Spacious – Hyperion TavernThe Madame Blavatsky Channel Opera as channeled by Becky Stark, Nora Keyes, & The Phan C. Spacious Magical Interdimensional Jam Band From Space MADAME BLAVATSKY CHANNEL OPERA w/ BECKY STARK, NO-RA KEYES & PHAN C. SPACIOUS! NAI IZUMI!MADAME BLAVATSKY CHANNEL OPERA w/ BECKY STARK, NO-RA KEYES & PHAN C. SPACIOUS! NAI IZUMI!MADAME BLAVATSKY CHANNEL OPERA w/ BECKY STARK, NO-RA KEYES & PHAN C. SPACIOUS! NAI IZUMI!MADAME BLAVATSKY CHANNEL OPERA w/ BECKY STARK, NO-RA KEYES & PHAN C. SPACIOUS! NAI IZUMI!
http://allevents.in/los%20angeles/ye-olde-hushe-clube-madame-blavatsky-channel-opera-w-becky-stark-no-ra-keyes-and-phan-c-spacious-nai/1710207172546331#
 
Fiona Apple-style singer Mikal Shapiro records "Reincarnation of Helena Blavatsky" - cool trippy song with great slide guitar work :
http://music.midwestmusicfound.org/track/the-reincarnation-of-helena-Blavatsky
 
Exhibition on Hindustani Classical Music mentions Blavatsky Lodge:
How Mumbai made space for Hindustani Classical Music to flourish - Apoorva Dutt
http://www.hindustantimes.com/music/how-mumbai-made-space-for-hindustani-classical-music-to-flourish/story-s5NDVpzwc5N4tpstmJsqrK.html
https://makingmusicmakingspace.wordpress.com/page/2/
 
There was a documentary on Blavatsky at Astrotheology Radio. May 20, 2015 Remembering the life and work of Madam Blavatsky
http://astrotheologyradio.com/home/remembering-helena-blavatsky/
 
Hard Rock Pop Band He Is Legend New Album title Few inspired by The Voice of the Silence:
That’s why the title, a nod to Madame Helena Blavatsky’s occult treasure The Voice of the Silence, feels so cosmically apropos for the Wilmington, NC quartet—Schuylar Croom [vocals], Adam Tanbouz [lead guitar], Matty Williams [bass], and Denis Desloge [guitar].
“This is dedicated to the people who supported us through everything,” declares Croom. “I was inspired by the words of Helena Blavatsky. She’s basically the godmother of the occult, and she dedicated one of her books to the few.
http://odyssey-music.net/marketing/he-is-legend---63-.html  

Nice Spanish article – Music and Esotericism:
Música y esoterismo
Francisco Ramos ·  01/09/2017  
La idea wagneriana de convertir el teatro en un templo es la preocupación mayor del Scriabin influido por el teosofismo promulgado por la doctora H. P. Blavatsky. El músico, en las notas que preparara para su obra inacabada El acto previo, nos deja constancia de su interés por la construcción de un templo en la residencia de Teosofía de Madrás, en la India. La obsesión de Scriabin por la representación de un Misterio (síntesis de sonidos, danzas y colores) proviene de su continua búsqueda de un espacio nuevo, algún particular Bayreuth, en el que le fuera posible al compositor llegar a la consecución final de toda alquimia espiritual: la integración cósmica, la regeneración del mundo entero y todas las criaturas espirituales en éxtasis.
http://3epoca.sulponticello.com/musica-y-esoterismo/